NxStage Device to Prepare High Purity Dialysate at Home

NxStage® Medical Receives FDA Clearance of Novel Device to Prepare High Purity Dialysate at Home

http://phoenix.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=142059&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=842399&highlight=

Gus any idea how this works and how long it will take to mix up the dialysate??

Cathy
writing from her hotel where she has already done 3 days of dialysis in the hotel!!

Geez, I don’t but I bet either you or me will be the first to try this new technology in our own homes! :wink:

P.S. SO your writing this from a laptop on your vacation? Get us pictures! :slight_smile:

Yep, hotel has wireless internet, ain’t life great!! Only problem is I forgot my scale, so have to guess my fluid removal, please don’t tell!! I pretty much go for broke and stop when I start cramping, I’ll see how well I did when I get home tomorrow afternoon.

I’ll post more and get the kid to download some pictures.

Cathy

I think I already have one of those. It’s a reverse osmosis water purifier about the size of an end table, which is connected to ordinary tap water, and a special ultrapure filter. It allows me to dialyze without bags of dialysate :slight_smile:

Seriously though, I think they are on the right track eliminating the dialysate bags for at home use and relying on them for travel.

Pierre

Can’t wait to try it out! As soon as I get one will take pictures and make a news announcement on my website… :smiley:

If it uses an RO to make the dialysate how could it be ultra pure? RO water is within guidelines but it’s not ultra pure. It will be interesting to understand what is going on here. Sounds to me like NxStage users will be making their dialysate just as I make my bicarb. If you get it Gus, keep us posted.

Hey Marty

Just curious. Does your Dad’s Fresenius machine have a Diasafe Plus filter on the back of it? Mine does. It looks like an extra dialyzer. I know it’s an option, so perhaps not everyone has that.

Pierre

Pierre, No ours doesn’t have one of those filters. When our program first started those filters were left off all the machines. However some patients kept getting bad machine cultures so the center added the extra filter. I fortunately have never had a bad machine culture in 6 years. Due to the distance we are from the center it has never seemed important enough to make the trip to install one.

Spoke to NxStage today. The new water system is not a true r/o system. They will send a bottle/bag of chemicals and in 8 hours it will make 60 liters of dialysate into a “bag” and you use it for 2-3 days and then make more. The system works by itself, just takes a few minutes to start it up apparently. Doesn’t need disinfecting or other maintenance.

Hope this information is correct as it sounds pretty easy and won’t increase the set up time.

Cathy

Hmmm, interesting, so I assume it has some kind of filtering system that creates Ultra Pure Dialysate, but 60 liters of dialysate in 8hours!! :shock:

I hope that info is correct…common now, its about ease of use and no mumbo jumbo complex do this and do that… :roll:

Ease of use and no mumbo jumbo? Ok. Open door to room where R/O is. Push button to turn it on :slight_smile:

Pierre

Hehehe, :lol:

Hope no extra plumbing is required…just an end-table with a button… :stuck_out_tongue:

I don’t mean to be obnoxious about this, but NxStage has a vested interest in making what we do with other machines sound as complicated as possible, and in doing so, dissuading people from choosing daily nocturnal hemo. Secondly, if you read all of their frequent press releases, you would think that only NxStage makes home hemodialysis possible. I find this rather annoying, personally, since home hemodialysis has been done without any NxStage for decades.

The water tap you use is connected to plumbing too. Ultimately, something is going to be connected to plumbing, unless you’re pumping it directly out of a well with a handpump.

Pierre

I understand, but get the whole point what they’re trying to dp? :smiley: …They.re miniturizing it!..

You have an R.O. in your closet do you?..

If NxStage’s long term goal is to make this tech smaller and smaller…and of course, much simple to use than conventional methods then hey! :wink:

As soon as we MxStage patients get some pics and more info we’ll know more but its a good start…

Another thing I was thinking…hmmm, if we can make our own dialysate at home then perhaps we can in my case I can take 15-30 liters aling with me on the road… :roll:

If 60l lasts 2-3 days it must still be lactate based and based assume low dialysate flow rates - why not stay with bags? I thought the whole point of going with inline water delivery was to be able to offer bicarb based dialysate and higher dialysate flow rates to addres the low clearance problem. I don’t see the advantage over the bags.

Saves $$$$ on shipping costs.

There’s no clearance problems at my end…labs are looking WOW!! :stuck_out_tongue:

The secrets of low-dialysate flow rates…they must hold a secret recipe under the hood…

Time will tell… :wink:

Pierre, whatever R/O system you use is quite different from the one I used. First, it used 300 gallons of water a day, an expensive proposition for me. Second it did take extra time to pull the r/o water which was needed to mix bicarb, I know of no one in the states who gets premixed bicarb. Third, it took nearly half a day on one of my 4 off days a month to sterilize it. Fourth I needed about 10 minutes a day to check the water. Fifth for me it took 4 tanks, two of which needed to be regenerated (taking about one hour each) at least weekly.

Don’t fault NxStage for this, fault users, I’ve never heard NxStage make a big deal about anything other than being portable. The r/o was what I disliked the most about the Fresenius, a great machine, but truly designed for in center use, not in home. They simply made a few programming changes to make it more “idiot proof” for the home market, and I didn’t even use that machine.

Bagged dialysate will still be used for some time in home and will remain available for travel (my understanding). I believe making it yourself may be easier for some patients than hanging the heavy bags, and will certainly eliminate storage space issues.

I simply continue to hope that it is as easy as it sounded as the ease of this machine is truly amazing. Other than waiting for the 18 minute prime, set up takes about 5 minutes, insert the cartridge and make a few connections. During the prime I can pull my supplies, pull my heparin, make my tapes, wash up, etc. and still be sitting around waiting.

Cathy
happy Fresenius user (9/-5-3/06)
ecstatic NxStage user (3/06)

The way I see it the life of a dialysta is complicated enough. I am all for anything that can make our lives healthier and happier and look forward to the future. I am sure all the companies out there delivering these systems will be keeping an eye on this site. It is amazing to read the changes people have gone through on this forum over the last 2 years and of course all the machines will keep evolving as Gus has predicted with his wristband scenario.
Hey, I still have friends that refuse to use computers, mobile phones, microwaves and dishwashers! Each to his own. :lol: