What is an Artificial Kidney?

An artificial kidney is a device that replaces kidney function and is used to help patients such as uremia. It is mainly used to treat renal failure and uremia. It draws blood out of the body using dialysis, filtration, adsorption, membrane separation and other principles to eliminate excess nitrogenous compounds, metabolism products or excess drugs in the body, adjust the electrolyte balance, and then lead the purified blood back into the body. There is also blood purification using human biofilms (such as the peritoneum).

Artificial kidney

Right!

An artificial kidney is a device that replaces kidney function and is used to help patients such as uremia. It is mainly used to treat renal failure and uremia. It draws blood out of the body using dialysis, filtration, adsorption, membrane separation and other principles to eliminate excess nitrogenous compounds, metabolism products or excess drugs in the body, adjust the electrolyte balance, and then lead the purified blood back into the body. There is also blood purification using human biofilms (such as the peritoneum).

History development

In 1943, the Dutch doctor Kolf made the first artificial kidney, and for the first time replaced a vital organ of the human body with a machine. The patient's blood flows through a tank inside the machine, which has a water tank with a filter made of a wooden frame covered with plastic film. Toxic substances in the blood can percolate through the membrane, blood cells and proteins cannot pass through. This machine can temporarily replace the function of the human kidney, so that the damaged kidney can recover, so that the patient can perform regular hemodialysis treatment for a long time. In 1960, American surgeon Scribner invented a plastic connector that can be permanently inserted into a patient's forearm, connecting arteries and veins; artificial kidneys can be easily connected to it without damaging blood vessels. In this way, patients can perform long-term timed liquid dialysis treatment. Within a few years, tens of millions of people with kidney disease were treated with artificial kidneys for dialysis, three times a week, for 10 to 12 hours each time, to support their lives. Many patients receive dialysis at home after training. An extracorporeal hemodialysis device that replaces part of the kidney function is an important medical device when preparing a kidney transplant.

The artificial kidney consists of a dialyzer, a dialysate supply device and an automatic monitoring system. Dialyzer is the main part of artificial kidney. It can be divided into three types: flat plate type, sacral tube type and hollow fiber type. Hollow-fiber dialyzers have higher dialysis efficiency than standard flat and sacral tube types, and they are small in volume, blood prefilled volume, and residual blood volume. They can avoid cross-infection and are easy to pre-sterilize. Applied in clinical. Hollow fiber artificial kidney dialyzers usually consist of 8000 to 10,000 hollow fiber packages with an outer diameter of 200 to 300 microns and a wall thickness of 20 to 40 microns. The dialysis area is 1 to 1.2 square meters. After the hollow fiber is introduced into the blood, it flows back to the human body. The dialysate enters the dialyzer after the temperature is adjusted by the temperature control system. The urea, muscle liver, and other metabolic waste in the patient's blood are taken out of the body by the dialysate through the hollow fiber membrane. The blood flow is generally About 200 ml / min, the dialysis time is 5-7 hours.

The hollow fiber materials used to make artificial kidney dialyzers are copper ammonium cellulose, acetate cellulose, polyacrylonitrile, polymethyl methacrylate, polyvinyl alcohol, etc. Copper ammonium cellulose is commonly used.