This device was developed as the result of a term long project for the Medical Device Design (2.750) course at MIT. This project was proposed by Dr. Franklin Segall and Fraser MacDonald affiliated with Mount Auburn Hospital and was completed under the supervision of Prof. Alex Slocum and Dr. Nevan Hanumara from MIT.
As a team of five students, we were tasked with developing a technology which may reduce barriers to starting in-home dialysis for patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). For ESRD patients, the most common treatment option is hemodialysis, a process which involves removing the patient's blood from their vascular system, passing it through an artificial filter, and returning the blood to the body. Because this filter serves the same purpose as a functioning kidney, proper treatment requires that dialysis be performed frequently, typically 3 to 5 times a week for an average of 4 hours each session. Many qualifying patients choose to conduct this treatment in-home rather than in-clinic. This option has many advantages over in-clinic treatment [1]:
Treatment can be done conveniently in the patient's home
In-home treatment is significantly less expensive compared to in-clinic treatment
Patients can perform treatment while sleeping rather than during waking hours
Despite these benefits, only about 1% of ESRD patients in the United States are treated with the in-home dialysis option. Through interviews with dialysis patients and discussions with our project's proposers, we determined that patients tend to avoid the in-home option because they are afraid of encountering problems in an environment where a trained nurse or doctor is not present. Additionally, patients tend to require the help of a second person at all times which can be disruptive to everyday life.
Our team developed a three-pronged approach to reaching our goal. The part of the project which I was directly involved with was the design of a device which allows cannulation (i.e. needle insertion) to be performed by a single person. This device has many benefits for the patient such as:
Creating a degree of separation between the patient and the intimidating needle
Making the needle insertion process more repeatable, reliable, and ergonomically feasible
Allowing needle insertion to be performed by a single person, especially the patient themselves
The device was designed to be easily adjustable to each person's arm and compatible with existing dialysis components such as the needle and tubing. The needle insertion motion can be easily actuated with the hand that would otherwise be unable to contribute to the task.
Pictures of the device as well as select design details can be found below. Videos are not included for reasons of non-disclosure.
[1] Rocco, Michael V., John T. Daugirdas, Tom Greene, Robert S. Lockridge, Christopher Chan, Andreas Pierratos, Robert Lindsay, et al. 2015. “Long-Term Effects of Frequent Nocturnal Hemodialysis on Mortality: The Frequent Hemodialysis Network (FHN) Nocturnal Trial.” American Journal of Kidney Diseases: The Official Journal of the National Kidney Foundation 66 (3):459–68. https://doi.org/10.1053/j.ajkd.2015.02.331.