Biocompatibility of the dialysis membrane.

Biocompatibility of dialysis membranes can be defined as the sum of specific interactions between blood and the dialysis membranes. In the early phase of hemodialysis therapy, acute side effects are the main issues for treatments of ESRD patients and biocompatibility of dialysis membranes are evaluated from aspects of acute reactions. Recently, chronic reactions that are not specifically acutely detrimental to the patients are focused for biocompatibility of dialysis membranes. These reactions include for example complement activation, contact pathway activation, platelet activation, monocyte activation and neutrophil activation during the hemodialysis treatments. In this paper, blood-membrane inter actions will be emphasized for evaluating the biocompatibility of dialysis membranes.