Development of New Hemodialysis Catheter Using Numerical Analysis and Experiments

A hemodialysis (HD) catheter, especially one with a symmetric tip design, plays an important role in the long-term treatment of patients with renal failure. It is well known that the design of the HD catheter has a considerable effect on blood recirculation and thrombus formation around it, which may cause inefficiencies or malfunctions during HD. However, hemodynamic analyses through parametric studies of its designs have been rarely performed; moreover, only comparisons between the existing models have been reported. In this study, we numerically analyzed the design of the HD catheter's side hole and distal tip for evaluating their effects on hemodynamic factors such as recirculation rate (RR), shear stress, and blood damage index (BDI). The results indicated that a larger side hole and a nozzle-shaped distal tip can significantly reduce the RR and shear stress around the HD catheter. Furthermore, based on these hemodynamic insights, we proposed three new HD catheter designs and compared their performances with existing catheters using numerical and in vitro methods. These new designs exhibited lower RRs and BDI values, thus providing better performance than the existing models. These results can help toward commercialization of more efficient HD catheters.