Blood flow displayed by dialysis machines: is it accurate?
Blood flow is a major determinant of dialysis efficiency. We reported in 1980, at the EDTNA conference in Prague (1), that the actual blood flow may be much lower than displayed by the dialysis machines. We demonstrated that the Negative Inflow Pressure (NIP), induced by the arterial needle and therefore generally referred to as arterial pressure, partly collapses the proximal blood pump segment whose inner volume is decreased. Thus the actually pumped volume per revolution is lower than the displayed blood flow.
Stragier
A
A
Cliniques Universitaires St-Luc Service de Néphrologie, Brussels, Belgium.
Wenderickx
D
D
Jadoul
M
M
D015982:Bias; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity; D001794:Blood Pressure; D004868:Equipment Failure; D006801:Humans; D007676:Kidney Failure, Chronic / Q000628:therapy; D007688:Kidneys, Artificial / Q000592:standards*; D006435:Renal Dialysis / Q000295:instrumentation*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results