In-vivo evaluation of residual blood volume in hemodialyzers

Abstract

The residual-blood volume (RBV) of dialyzer is an issue in a lot of dialysis units. In this study the RBV after termination of dialysis treatment was determined by means of a spectrophotometric approach. The RVB obtained was then compared with visual score, which relied on common clinical practices. It was shown that a low visually rating score was not warrant a low blood residual remaining in a dialyzer after the rinseback. Even if the color of the dialyzer indicated a large RBV the true volume in most cases were very low for transparent membrane dialyzers.