A FPGA-based home-care ultrasound device for measuring the flow volume of arteriovenous fistula in dialysis patients

In general, kidney patients often have hemodialysis three to four times a week, and need to take few hours once. Before hemodialysis, the medical staff must often measure the flow volume within the vessel for the patient. If blood flow is found to be insufficient, it denotes that the blood vessels are blocked for some reasons. However, it is a very serious event for the patient, which means that patients cannot be hemodialysis and must be done the repair surgery of arteriovenous fistula immediately, otherwise it will cause the patient's life risk. In order to reduce this occurrence, the surgeon suggested that could develop a device for the patients who can measure the blood flow volume by himself or families at home. In this study, we developed a FPGA-based home-care ultrasound device for measuring the flow volume of arteriovenous fistula in dialysis patients.