Home Dialysis News

Fresenius Medical Care has issued a voluntary class II recall of more than 1.8 million bottles of NaturaLyte Liquid Bicarbonate Concentrate for hemodialysis because of possible bacterial contamination.

NxStage Medical Inc. is celebrating its 10th year anniversary this summer of the Food and Drug Administration's clearance of its System One home hemodialysis machine. More than 10 million treatments on thousands of dialysis patients have taken place around the world since the machine was launched, the company said.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services published the 2014 Open Payments data about transfers of value by drug and medical device makers to health care providers. The data includes information about 11.4 million financial transactions attributed to over 600,000 physicians and more than 1,100 teaching hospitals, totaling $6.49 billion.

A report published online June 24 in JAMA Surgery, maps out the geographic gaps in end-stage renal disease care and quantifies the difference in death risk stemming from such regional disparities.

Fresenius Medical Care Renal Therapies Group, LLC has initiated a voluntary recall of all Crit-Line blood chambers, due to reports of leaks in some of the products. The recall involves more than 22 million products distributed in the United States, Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, Great Britain, Netherlands, Norway, Mexico, Egypt, and Czech Republic.

After receiving several complaints form home hemodialysis patients about difficulty using the Nipro BioHole Needle with CAPICK Scab Remover, Home Dialyzors United sent a letter to the FDA, asking the agency to revoke its approval of the needle. The needle has been on the market since its approval in March 2010.

When faced with going on dialysis in the spring of 2006, I was given two options: in-center hemodialysis three times weekly for long periods of time, or daily PD (peritoneal dialysis) which I could do at home, several times a day. And no needles. I hated needles. In the beginning, PD was the easy choice for me.

The Vascular Access Society of Americas is planning its fifth biennial practicum at Duke University in Durham North Carolina from May 15-16. Since the first vascular access practicum in 2007, this program has emerged as premier, one-of-a kind activity that offers “hands on” experience for nephrology physicians, surgeons, and dialysis access interventionalists. Due to its success, the program expanded its activities in 2011 to provide training for dialysis nurses and technicians.

A new test has been developed to predict sudden cardiac death in hemodialysis patients in whom such forecasts were previously impossible. The method was presented at the International Conference on Nuclear Cardiology and Cardiac CT (ICNC 12) by Dr Akiyoshi Hashimoto, a cardiologist at Sapporo Medical University in Japan. The test uses a combination of nuclear medicine, C-reactive protein and electrocardiogram (ECG).

Dialysis product manufacturer NxStage Medical Inc. has created a new scientific advisory board led by Allan J. Collins, MD, who will act as the senior medical advisor.