Abstract
Hemofilters are medical devices for assisting deteriorated renal functions, which purify the blood by removing pathogen and wastes. For continuous hemofilters, antithronbogenecity is one of the most important requirements. The aim of this study is to investigate the key parameters for the establishment of a reliable in vitro thrombogenecity testing methodology for continuous hemofilters using human blood from healthy volunteers. This study used adjusted activated clotting time of human blood drawn from healthy volunteers to 150-200 sec using heparin. The blood was circulated in the air-contactless circuit with flow and pressure in a clinical situation was reproduces. The tests were terminated when the inlet pressure elevated to 150 mmHg from the initiation pressure of 70 mmHg at the inlet. The average circulation duration was 6.5±1.7 hours(n=4). The circulation duration using human blood from healthy volunteers were shorter than using porcine blood which was previously reported. Hematocrit of porcine blood was lower than the human blood from healthy volunteers, whereas the hematocrit of porcine blood was comparable to dialysis patients. These data indicated the importance of hematocrit of blood in the assessment of the thrombogenecity of continuous hemofilters.
