Home Dialysis News

Airlines are now required to transport portable dialysis equipment for free after patients complained to the U.S. Department of Transportation about excessive charges or refusal to transport the equipment.

Dialysis product manufacturer NxStage Medical is part of a team of device makers that won a contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, to develop a new medical device that can treat sepsis.

Dialysis product manufacturer NxStage Medical Inc reported second quarter financial results with total revenue at the top end of its guidance range.

The Alliance for Home Dialysis has released an updated analysis by Avalere Health on the distribution of dialysis patients using home modalities in the United States. The analysis is based on “heat maps” that break down the location of peritoneal dialysis and home hemodialysis patients by state using 2011 Medicare data. The maps also show utilization of home modalities by race and a breakdown by End-Stage Renal Disease Networks. The patient numbers by state also include patients in nursing homes.

Fresenius Medical Care AG won a U.S. appeals court ruling July 3 that ended a patent-infringement claim brought by Baxter International Inc. over touch screens on hemodialysis machines.

Dialysis product manufacturer NxStage Medical Inc. has appointed Matthew W. Towse senior vice president and chief financial officer. Robert S. Brown, former senior vice president and chief financial officer, has been named president of NxStage Kidney Care Inc., the subsidiary responsible for NxStage's Centers of Excellence initiative. In addition, Kevin Hershberger, NxStage's controller and vice president of finance, has been appointed to the newly established post of vice president, chief accounting officer and controller.

There was a significant decrease in the United States in mortality rates over time among children and adolescents initiating end-stage renal disease treatment with dialysis between 1990 and 2010, according to a study of more than 20,000 patients published in the May 8 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association..

Dialysis product manufacturer NxStage Medical Inc. has signed new supply agreements with DaVita for home dialysis, critical care, and in-center dialysis supplies. NxStage has extended until Dec. 31, 2015 a previous agreement from 2010 to supply home hemodialysis supplies to the dialysis provider. NxStage and DaVita also entered into an agreement covering the purchase of NxStage's System One and other products for acute inpatient therapy within the critical care market through Dec. 31, 2015.

Pentec Health Inc. has initiated a limited recall of some of its nutritional prescriptions for renal patients due to lack of sterility assurance associated with one of its laminar flow hoods used in compounding. The recall covers renal therapies that were compounded in this hood on or before May 2, 2013.  These therapies were supplied to renal dialysis centers and directly to patients.  Pentec Health is directly notifying each dialysis center and in-home dialysis patient of the recall.  Prescriptions for a total of 163 patients are included in the scope of this recall, Pentec Health said

The language we use can be a powerful tool. While a glass holds the same volume whether it is half full or half empty, there is a world of associative difference––in optimism or in pessimism––that accompanies these two opposing viewpoints of the same glass.