A model for non-invasive estimation of in vivo dialyzer performances and patient's conductivity during hemodialysis.

On-line monitoring of hemodialysis sessions requires a non-invasive estimation of the parameters concerning the patient's status and the dialyzer performances. We describe here a model based on a new method for non-invasive dialysance and patient conductivity measurements. In this technique the same probe measures alternately the conductivity at the dialysate inlet and outlet for two different dialysate conductivity values. From these data, an appropriate model allows to determine the patient's conductivity as well as the effective dialysance of ionised solutes, that is to say the dialysance corrected for recirculation. A strong correlation is evidenced between the effective dialysance measured by this method and the urea clearance measured by conventional methods (r = 0.98 for in vitro solutions; r = 0.82 in vivo situations).