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RESEARCH

Adsorption in Extracorporeal Therapies


Special topic articles published in Blood Purification.
 

Hemoadsorption: A New Frontier in Blood Purification

Author: Claudio Ronco, Editor-in-Chief

Limitations imposed by current dialysis techniques due to membrane permeability and inadequate clearance of large middle molecules and protein-bound solutes require new methods of blood purification. Such opportunity is offered by new sorbent materials and new extracorporeal hemoadsorption techniques. These new options will represent a new frontier in the area of blood purification for patients with acute and chronic kidney diseases, but also for patients with critical illness and requirement of multiple organ support. While the history of sorbents started almost two centuries ago, only recently synthetic porous polymers have been applied for effective blood purification purposes [1].

Highly biocompatible new sorbent materials allowed a progressive expansion of the clinical application of hemoadsorption [2]. The analysis of the molecular structure of sorbents, as well as the study of the chemical-physical mechanisms involved in the process of adsorption, are fascinating and not completely elucidated. Initial reports of application in chronic patients with pruritus and other solute-related symptoms (especially in the field of liver failure) have provided encouraging results. At the same time, clinical applications of sorbents in critical illness such as sepsis, acute kidney injury, cytokine release syndrome, burns, and trauma, have provided a remarkable number of hypothesis-generating papers and studies that require an in-depth evaluation [3].

While the rationale is evident, larger prospective studies are required to corroborate initial results. We need to identify meaningful target molecules and to understand what conditions trigger the application of hemoadsorption. We need to define the timing of application, the duration of the session. We need to elucidate the adequate dose of hemoadsorption and the correct criteria for prescription while clarifying the potential side effects. This first collection of papers in a special focus issue of Blood Purification is just the beginning of a process of continuous search for new evidence and new clinical data that will find in our journal the place for presenting new information and new discoveries to the scientific community. Somehow, we are today with sorbents where we were 40 years ago with dialysis membranes. We need to answer the question for hemoadsorption that we answered in the last four decades for hemodialysis and CRRT. The pathway towards the future of blood purification has begun and we are looking forward to evaluate and publish more papers to design the scientific evidence for the rising era of hemoadsorption.


Adsorption-in-Extracorporeal-Therapies-Image

Fig. 1. Description of the main mass separation processes in extracorporeal techniques for blood purification: diffusion, convection, adsorption.


References
  1. Ronco C, Bordoni V, Levin NW. Contrib Nephrol 2002;137:158-164.
  2. Ankawi G, Fan W, et al. Blood Purif. 2019;47(1-3):94-100.
  3. Monard C, Rimmelé T, Ronco C. Blood Purif. 2019;47 Suppl 3:1-14.
 

 


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