Is It Safe To Use Reusable Dialyzer?

Posted on Thu, 14 Aug 2014

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Thu, 14 Aug 2014 Answered on

Tue, 2 Sep 2014 Last reviewed on

Question : Thank you much to Dr. Varshney for all his detailed responses. I have another question regarding same person. Being on dialysis, XXXXXXX became allergic to dialyzer about 6 mo ago with chills, confusion, high BP, bad headaches, nausea, fever. At that time it was Optiflux dialyzer. They changed dialyzer to Revaclear. With new dialyzer and taking Benadryl that days 3 times a day things were going pretty well for about 3 month. Now all symptoms came back. Benadryl and Tylenol don't help much. Days of dialysis became as nightmare and every time is worse. In dialysis office they offered us to switch to reusable dialyzer. As I remember from literature it is not the best choice, and as I know hospitals do not use reusable. So we refused it in past.What would be your advice. Should we agree to reusable or ask them to order different non reusable dialyzer. If we ask them for a new one, do you have any brands in mind? Thank you

Answered by Dr. Rahul Tawde (16 hours later)

Brief Answer:
Detailed answer written below

Detailed Answer:
Hi, thanks for posting your concern in the HCM.
Use of reusable dialyzer is still a matter of controversy.
There are several risks associated with the use of reusable dialyzer e.g. hazard from germicide exposure and disposal, they are specifically effective when there are more adverse symptoms with new single use dialyzers.
Revaclear is a very good dialyzer. But, the patient is having those symptoms.
Furthermore, there are at least two large randomized controlled trials that found no difference in mortality between single use and reuse groups.
So, If necessary reusable dialyzers may be used after consulting the local nephrologist.
Hope you are satisfied with the answer. For any further query, please write back.
Regards,
Dr. Kaushik

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Prasad