Continuous Ultrasonic Measurement of Whole Blood Protein Concentration for the Assessment of Relative Blood Volume Changes During Hemodialysis

Hemodialysis treatment includes the removal of at times considerable amounts of fluid from the circulating blood volume. With reduced treatment times blood volume monitoring gains practical importance and there have been several suggestions for monitoring blood volume changes during hemodialysis. All methods operate on the continuous measurement of an intrinsic property of blood, such as extinction ([1]) or density ([2]). Recently, we have introduced a measuring technique which permits continuous control of protein concentration of whole blood ([3]). It is the objective to introduce this technique for the control of fluid shifts to and from the vascular compartment during hemodialysis treatment as well as to show its applicability for the determination of blood volume by saline dilution measurements.