The care of patients with end stage renal disease is a major medical endeavor in the United States. Each patient requires 30-50 gallons of dialysate solution for hemodialysis treatment per session. Regeneration of dialysis fluid during treatment would reduce the volume required and hence the cost of treatment. This offers potential for moving dialysis out of centers and into the home or office. The current commercially available regeneration system uses a complex procedure where urea is degraded to ammonia, which under proper pH control is converted to the ammonium ion. Expensive anion and cation exchange layers are then used to remove the ionic species produced.
The aim of the proposal is to develop an inert sorbent system capable of selectively binding toxic metabolites. Preliminary results have shown that such a sorbent system is capable of efficiently binding urea from an aqueous solution. These results demonstrate the potential use of this technology for the development of a portable hemodialysis system. In Phase II, we will optimize urea absorption process and use a similar technique to remove other minor metabolites to produce an efficient, light- weight cost-effective cartridge for dialysate regeneration.
This technology has a considerable potential for the development of a truly portable hemodialysis system. In addition to lowering health care costs, such a system would provide a new-found mobility to patients with end stage renal disease.
