[Oxygen exchange processes between the dialyzing fluid and the blood during hemodialysis and resultant practical...

The polarographic measuring technique was used to examine the processes of oxygen exchange between dialysing fluid and blood during haemodialysis in 21 patients of the chronic haemodialysis programme. During haemodialysis there is a tendency for the arterial oxygen partial pressure to fall; on the statistical average this is slight, in individual cases it is a marked tendency. With the apparatus KNA 302 (without degassing facilities) the blood is slightly oxygenated. This is less with the apparatus KN 401 (not very effective degassing facilities). With complete degassing of the dialysis solution a loss of oxygen through the membrane would be expected. This loss could be avoided by complete degassing of the dialysis solution and subsequent oxygenation. Various ways of realizing extrapulmonary oxygenation during haemodialysis in order to counteract the described tendency to hypoxaemia are pointed out. They should be particularly important when pulmonary means are exhausted (acute dialysis, shock lung).