Hemodialysis Home End Stage Renal Disease
(ESRD) Principles
Dialyzers Modeling
Hemodialysis Therapy Demonstration History
Dialyzers
The heart
of hemodialysis is the dialyzer. A very
large and competive market, with several manufacturers, serves the needs of the
hemodialysis community. A typical
specification flyer for hemdialyzers is shown in the picture immediately
following (this is not an endorsement for Fresenius products).
The back side
of the flyer typically contains dialyzer specifications, as shown here.
The most
common dialyzers are hollow fiber devices that contain thousands of hollow
fibers housed in a hard plastic, typically polycarbonate, shell. Blood flows through the dialyzer on the
interior (lumen) of the fibers.
Dialysate flows through the dialyzer on the exterior (shell-side) of the
fibers.
Depending
upon the manufacturer, the fibers are made from such biocompatible
materials as cellulose acetate or polysulfone.
The fibers have a microporous structure that permit the diffusion of
small molecular weight species from the blood to the dialysate. The diffusion rate can be expressed in terms
of the dialyzer clearance of the molecule. The specification sheet above shows the clearances of various
molecules for indicated dialyzers under different blood and dialysate flow rate
conditions. The large variety of
dialyzers permits physicians to appropriately specify a hemodialysis treatment
to meet the needs of a patient.
The web
addresses for three of the larger vendors in the United States are:
www.fmc-ag.com (Fresenius Medical Care)
www.baxter.com (Baxter Healthcare Corporation)
www.gambro.com (Gambro AB)
Hemodialysis Home End Stage Renal Disease
(ESRD) Principles
Dialyzers Modeling
Hemodialysis Therapy Demonstration History
Copyright ©
2001, John F Patzer II
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