Enhanced Kidney Dialysis by Ultrasonic Transduction

The objective of this research is to improve the efficiency of kidney dialysis. Efficiency of massdetermined by clearance rate across the membrane. One of the primary restrictions to clearance is thcondition at the membrane surface which exists in either tube or channel. The aim is to increase effboundary layer, thus altering clearance of common metabolites such as sodium chloride, urea, creatinWe will create an "active" mixing to increase efficiency by utilizing low power ultrasonic energy toup boundary layers in the blood envelope, allowing more plasma and formed elements to contact membraAn ultrasonic transducer is coupled to parallel plate and hollow fiber dialyzers and then excited wispecific frequency ranges. Improved efficiency is determined by comparison of assay results of bloodfor ultrasonic versus non-ultrasonic (control) dialysis. Additionally, cellular damage is monitoredvalues of ultrasonic versus control dialysis. Coupling ultrasonic transducers to dialyzers should immanagement and reduce costs by diminishing the duration of kidney dialysis treatments.