Dutch Kidney Disease Association
Neokidney
Portable artificial kidney, the size of a suitcase, tries to restore freedom to hemodialysis patients.
Those who have kidney problems often go through hemodialysis.
It is a treatment that, in short, “purifies” the blood. It involves a machine – dialyzer or artificial kidney – that filters the blood, removes toxins, excess fluids, salt; controls minerals such as potassium, replacing kidney function, usually performed in clinics, hospitals or, in some cases, at home.
To undergo hemodialysis, patients with kidney failure often undergo sessions of around 4 hours, 3 times a week.
It is a vital, necessary, but intensive treatment. AND a long time spent in a hospital, how easy it is to deduce.
It was to give these patients more freedom that the Neokidney, a mobile dialysis system. It’s a portable artificial kidney the size of a suitcase.
It was already created a few years ago (2014), by the Dutch Renal Foundation, but is now being tested at the University Medical Center of Utrecht, also in the Netherlands.
Clinical trials that are an “important step towards its introduction in dialysis patients”, read in .
The Neokidney is a portable hemodialysis machine for home and travel use, the size of a carry-on suitcase.
It is a device that offers a treatment that adapts to the patient’s daily routine – instead of the other way around.
Tom Oostromdirector of the Dutch Renal Foundation, summarizes: “We are not just raising funds; we are extremely committed to achieving improvements for kidney patients. In the current dialysis market, there have been little innovation in recent decades, although the technology to develop a compact and portable dialysis device already exists.”
The nephrologist Karin Gerritsen, from the University Medical Center of Utrecht, leads the European study and shows optimistic: “More freedom to go wherever you want means a lot to patients. Safety studies and initial trials in France were positive. And now trials have started in Utrecht.”
“In the current study, we are treating approximately 50 patients over a longer period of time, and they are also using the device at home,” he describes.
The idea is to start introducing the innovation to Dutch patients at the end of 2027; and complete patient tests also in Belgium and France, before obtaining the necessary certification in Europe.
