Dialyzers Sterilized With Ethylene Oxide Are Fatal

Kidney failure is one of the most spreading diseases, it has many causes and in the US there are about 26 million adults who have a kidney disease. There are 661 thousand Americans who are diagnosed with total kidney failure, Because it is impossible to provide for a kidney transplant for all these numbers, they are going to apply for dialysis as around 468 thousand are undergoing dialysis.

Those who are treated with dialysis suffer from many things as they have to regulate their diets as they cannot consume food with high phosphorus like bananas, they will have 3 sessions a week for about 4 hours each to apply for dialysis. Their entire lifestyle will be altered.


In addition to this, dialysers are of many kinds and grades and have different properties, here in this article we want to shed light on dialysers that are sterilized with ethylene oxide, though it is a good way for sterilization as it does not damage the dialyser and is very effective sterilization process, it is a harmful material that holds the risk of increasing eosinophilia, and in some cases it can be a factor that aids spreading of cancer cells and moreover it can shorten the life expectancy of a patient to 10-15 years.    

We as biomedical engineers strive to improve patient safety and to provide better patient quality of service, dialysis is one of the solutions that gave patients with kidney failure hope, the future promises the possibility of having 3D printed kidneys that are grafted from cells of the patient thus it does not trigger the immune system to fight against them, but as this is not possible to be commercially done in the near future we are now bound apply dialysis for patients with kidney failure.

We need to spread the awareness that even though dialysers that are treated with EtO can be cheaper that other sterilization processes, it hold the possibility of being harmful for patient who are regularly treated with such dialysers. I have known many healthcare specialists who were not aware that dialysers are treated with EtO, where others did not believe that the concentration found in the dialyser can have the potential to harm patients, but studies prove that it does harm the patient if not in lifespan it can at least reduce the patient's quality of life.

In developing countries the problem is more critical as most of the time patients are not even given the right amount of sessions, in other cases more than one patient are treated with the same dialyser that is supposed to be disposable leading to transfer of diseases that make things even worst to kidney failure patients. Thus in some countries patients with kidney failure are on continuous suffering and complications making their lives a misery that ends a little too soon.

In case you have something to add and share with others, please write it in the comments section below.