Dialysis that fits in a 13-kilo box — no water pipe, no drain, no clinic required

Standard dialysis chains patients to a clinic: the machines are huge and use at least 30 litres of water per session. Karin Gerritsen of UMC Utrecht presented the RENEW-HD results at Kidney Week in Denver: a portable machine weighing just 13 kilograms that regenerates its own 4.5 litres of fluid in a closed loop, so it needs no water connection and no drain. In its study, the device met the prespecified target for cleaning the blood, with no serious adverse effects from the device itself. For people whose lives are scheduled around a dialysis centre, a machine that can travel is a different life.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation