| Theme |
New Modalities in Blood Purification Therapies |
| Title |
Continuous blood purification (CBP) |
| Author |
Kenichi Matsuda |
Department of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine |
| Author |
Hiroyuki Hirasawa |
Department of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine |
| [ Summary ] |
Recently, blood purification (BP) has begun to play an important role in the treatment of critically ill patients. Among the many kinds of BP performed in critical care, continuous BP (CBP) is recognized as the treatment of first choice because it can be performed very easily and safely, even on critically ill patients. Continuous hemodiafiltration, using a polymethyl methacrylate membrane hemofilter (PMMA-CHDF) is performed most frequently, not only to serve as an artificial kidney but also to remove various cytokines from the blood stream of critically ill patients. CBP should be aggressively performed in the management of patients with chronic renal failure when they have fatal complications. Therefore, critical care physicians should understand the efficacies of CBP and select the best blood purification suitable for the pathophysiologic condition of critically ill patients. |