Research in brief: Protein loss with high-flux and medium cut-off membranes

Dialysis, at its most fundamental, is the act of cleaning the blood to remove toxins. In a recent study, we explored whether dialyzers with larger pore sizes, which allow the clearance of larger toxins, also allow beneficial molecules to escape.

Our research used a unique ex vivo system to compare the protein loss in both high-flux and medium cut-off (MCO) membranes. The findings consistently show a higher protein loss - up to 9-fold - with MCO membranes. This work is a significant step forward in understanding the nonselective nature of dialysis and raises important questions for future bioinformatic analyses and clinical studies.

Read the paper: “Protein Loss With High-Flux and Medium Cut-Off Membranes: An Ex Vivo Comparative Analysis”

Dr. Manuela Stauss-Grabo, Xiaoling Wang, Peter Kotanko, and Nadja Grobe discuss the ex vivo system they developed to allow concurrent comparison of two dialyzers under the same conditions, using the same plasma source.

Watch the video below: