Wak Engineering Evolution

The wearable artificial kidney (WAK) is a device that allows prolonged and frequent dialysis treatments for patients with end stage renal disease. It potentially provides a practical and feasible solution to satisfy the need for an optimal delivered dialysis. Until now, the WAK has already been presented in several models, proposing different therapeutic modalities and engineering approaches. The ideal solution of a WAK may come from a combination of all the prototypes developed and/or those currently in development. Consequently, it is important to have a complete overview and a deep knowledge of the possible engineering solutions in order to achieve the incremental steps necessary to solve the remaining issues of wearable extracorporeal blood purification devices. Since technical advances are continuously evolving and it is important to focus on clinical requirements and needs, a multidisciplinary collaboration has to be coordinated to achieve the final objective of the practical realization of a wearable artificial kidney. In such a context, the main aim of this article was to analyze more in detail the WAK Engineeristic Development. (C) 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel