the.com/hemodialysis
A machine filters the blood when kidneys fail, a treatment many people rely on repeatedly to stay alive.
means A medical procedure that filters waste and excess fluid from the blood using an external machine, done when the kidneys can no longer do it themselves.
from Built from Greek pieces: 'haima' (blood) and 'dialysis' (a separating, a setting free, from 'dialyein' — to dissolve or loosen apart). Dialysis itself was borrowed by 19th-century chemistry for the technique of separating substances through a membrane; doctors later attached 'hemo-' to name the specific act of running blood through that same kind of filter.
- invented by
- a Dutch doctor using sausage casing in 1943
- session length
- about four hours, three times weekly
- how it works
- filters blood through a membrane outside the body
- access point
- a surgically joined vein and artery called a fistula