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YOUR HEALTH: The effort to avoid dialyses

A new device may provide an alternative for dialysis patients who are unable to get a kidney transplant

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Half a million Americans have no other option besides being tied to a dialysis machine for several hours a day, three times a week.

13 people die each day waiting for a kidney transplant. 

But a new artificial kidney is showing promise as an alternative for people desperate for a new kidney.

"We have more than 150,000 patients starting on dialysis and we could only offer 30,000 to 40,000 kidney transplants a year," explained Dr. Alp Ikizler, professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Researchers are developing an artificial kidney that may give patients an opportunity for a dialysis-free life. 

The device has two parts.

"We have a filter that separates waste products and salt and water from blood, and we have a bioreactor of cultured kidney cells that concentrate that filtrate down into a manageable amount of fluid," said William Fissell, another Vanderbilt professor of medicine.

Doing the same work as a healthy kidney, but in an implanted device that is about the same size. 

It will operate around the clock. 

Not deterring people from traveling or enjoying certain activities.

"It's hard to travel if you're a dialysis patient," said Fissell. 

"You have to find a dialysis unit wherever you're going."

Researchers have developed a device that may have patients saying goodbye to dialysis for good.

They're about the size of a fist and filter about 35 gallons of blood per day. 

Your kidneys are vital to a healthy life.

"The kidney does two major things: One is to clean the toxins that accumulate in the body as well as the fluid that accumulates in the body and get rid of them," explained Dr. Ikizler.

But when your kidneys fail, your only option is to start dialysis and wait until a kidney is available.

For every person who gets a kidney transplant, five patients did not.

For Fissell, this research is also personal.

"I have kidney disease in my family. I have kidney disease 

Even though he hasn't needed dialysis, he's working on the next steps to get this device to dialysis patients who will need it the most.

The Kidney Project headquartered at UCSF was granted $1 million from The John and Marcia Goldman Foundation to advance its bioartificial kidney. 

The grant will support the development of the device's bioreactor, which will perform essential kidney functions that dialysis treatments don't replace. 

This first-of-its-kind artificial organ will be implanted in the abdomen to replace a damaged or diseased kidney without the need for immunosuppressant drugs and at less than one-third the cost of chronic dialysis. 

The bioreactor contains a culture of human kidney cells, which help filter a patient's blood by reabsorbing nutrients and routing toxins and excess water, the urine, to the bladder for excretion. 

It will also assist with blood pressure regulation and hormone production which is an important advantage over dialysis treatments. 

Dr. Fissell is working with professor Shuvo Roy at UCSF.

If sufficient funding is obtained, they hope to have this device in human clinical trials within two years to help those in kidney failure. 

If this story has impacted your life or prompted you or someone you know to seek or change treatments, please let us know by contacting Jim Mertens at jim.mertens@wqad.com or Marjorie Bekaert Thomas at mthomas@ivanhoe.com.

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