Hemodialysis

Hemodialysis removes waste products, excess salts, and water from blood through a dialyzer when kidney function is inadequate. Blood travels through the device and returns to the body.

Dialyzer: A device containing a semipermeable membrane that separates blood from dialysate during dialysis. Its membrane enables waste and solute exchange while keeping blood cells and proteins in the bloodstream.
Chronic kidney disease: Long-term kidney damage or reduced kidney function that can impair waste and fluid regulation. Progressive disease can make ongoing hemodialysis necessary.
Peritoneal dialysis: A dialysis method that uses the lining of the abdomen as a membrane for solute and water exchange. It performs dialysis inside the body rather than through an external dialyzer.
John Abel: An American pharmacologist who developed an early artificial kidney device with colleagues in the early twentieth century. His experimental apparatus demonstrated that blood could be dialyzed outside the body.
Scribner shunt: A vascular access device that connected an artery and vein externally for repeated hemodialysis. It helped turn dialysis from a one-time intervention into ongoing treatment.
Diffusion: The net movement of particles from higher to lower concentration through random molecular motion. It moves many dissolved wastes from blood into dialysate across the dialyzer membrane.
Acute kidney injury: A sudden decline in kidney function that develops over hours or days. Temporary hemodialysis may support patients while kidney function recovers.
Continuous renal replacement therapy: A group of prolonged, slower blood-purification treatments used mainly in critically ill patients. Its continuous pace contrasts with the shorter, intermittent sessions typical of hemodialysis.
Georg Haas: A German physician who performed early human hemodialysis treatments in the 1920s. His clinical experiments brought extracorporeal dialysis into human treatment.
Medicare and End-Stage Renal Disease: The United States Medicare program established in 1972 to cover treatment for eligible people with end-stage renal disease. Public coverage greatly expanded access to chronic dialysis in the United States.

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