Preliminary safety study of the Automated Wearable Artificial Kidney (AWAK) in Peritoneal Dialysis patients

Background: Regeneration of peritoneal dialysis (PD) fluid using sorbent technology can provide flexibility and improve quality of life. This study examined the safety and efficacy of the automated wearable artificial kidney (AWAK) device in PD patients. Methods: This pilot study included prevalent PD patients from a single center in Singapore between 2016 and 2018. Participants underwent up to nine AWAK therapies over 72 h and were followed up for 1 month. Primary outcomes were serious adverse events (SAEs) and completion of nine therapies without device deficiency. Secondary outcomes were weekly peritoneal Kt/ V urea, solutes clearance and adverse events (AEs). Results: Twenty-one patients were screened and 15 were included in the study. Device alterations were required to overcome issues including flow occlusions initially, which resulted in three cohorts ( n = 2, 2 and 11 respectively). No SAEs were observed during the study and at the follow-ups. Common AEs were abdominal pain/discomfort (60%) and bloatedness (47%). The median estimated peritoneal weekly Kt/ V urea was 3.0 (interquartile range: 2.2–4.8). There were significant reductions in pre- and post-study median serum urea (20.8 vs. 14.9 mmol/L; p = 0.001), creatinine (976.0 vs. 667.5 µmol/L; p = 0.001), phosphate (1.7 vs. 1.5 mmol/L; p = 0.03), and β2-microglobulin (29114.0 vs. 26339.0 µg/L; p = 0.048). Fluid reabsorption occurred among patients with residual kidney function. However, median body weights were not significantly different pre- and post-study (66.4 vs. 65.7 kg; p = 0.83). Conclusions: This preliminary study demonstrated that no SAEs were observed with the AWAK-PD device; however, 60% of participants developed abdominal pain/discomfort. Further device enhancements are needed to improve ultrafiltration and reduce AEs.

Design and Implementation of a Wearable Artificial Kidney Prototype for Home Treatment

Hemodialysis is a life-preserving treatment for a number of patients with kidney failure. Hemodialysis is usually done three times per week for about four hours at a time. During the hemodialysis procedure, the patient usually suffering from many inconvenient, fatigue, stress and disturbance in the work of the heart and cardiovascular system are the most common signs. This paper provides a solution to reduce the previous problems by designing a wearable artificial kidney (WAK) taking in consideration minimization the size of the dialysis machine. The WAK system consists of two circuits: blood circuit and dialysate circuit. The blood from the patient is filtered in the dialyzer before returning back to the patient. Several parameters using an advanced microcontroller and array of sensors are considered. WAK equipped with visible and audible alarm system to aware the patients if there is any problem.