Artificial kidneys -- a renal replacement therapy

What is it about?

Vitamin E is known as an anti-oxydative agent. Then a dialyzer whose membrane is coated with vitamin E has been commercially available in order to improve its biocompaibility. In the article, we provide basic results of penetration of various solutes across the membrane which may have been suppressed by the coating. Not only the coating material (vitamin E) but also the coating procedure may have reduced the performance of the dialyer. According to the FE-SEM, vitamin E may exist as a fairly large particle on the membrane.

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Why is it important?

Since vitamin E has been known as an anti-oxydative agen, no one was interested in the solute removal of the dialyzer whose membrane is coated with vitamine E. We have been investigating clinical effectiveness of this dialyzer from the view point of solute transport rather than biocompatibility.