Qualified medical treatments abroad
Dialysis
from
Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia
In medicine, dialysis is a type of renal replacement therapy which is used to provide an artificial replacement for lost kidney function due to renal failure. It is a life support treatment and does not treat any kidney diseases. Dialysis may be used for very sick patients who have suddenly lost their kidney function (acute renal failure) or for quite stable patients who have permanently lost their kidney function (end stage renal failure). When healthy, the kidneys remove waste products (for example potassium, acid and urea) from the blood and also remove excess fluid in the form of urine. Dialysis treatments have to duplicate both of these functions as dialysis (waste removal) and ultrafiltration (fluid removal).
The Principle of Dialysis
Dialysis works on the principle of the diffusion of solutes along a
concentration gradient across a semipermeable membrane. In all types of
dialysis, blood passes on one side of a semipermeable membrane, and a
dialysis fluid is passed on the other side. By altering the composition of
the dialysis fluid, the concentrations of undesired solutes (chiefly
potassium and urea) in the fluid are low, but the desired solutes (for
example sodium) are at their natural concentration found in healthy blood.
Types of dialysis
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