A home dialysis machine inspired by the technology used in fruit juice dispensers has won the UK’s most prestigious engineering award.
The device, manufactured by Quanta, is currently used by about 50 patients in the UK, but more than a dozen NHS trusts plan to offer the technology to patients this year and experts say it could transform patients’ lives. with kidney disease.
Speaking ahead of the announcement of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s MacRobert Award on Tuesday evening, Professor Sir Richard Friend, chairman of the jury, said the technology demonstrated “remarkable engineering ingenuity” and had the potential to drastically improve patients’ quality of life and alleviate. pressure on hospitals.
“The team exemplifies persistence, innovation and unconventional thinking that has long been a hallmark of the UK’s great engineering success stories and are worthy winners of the MacRobert Award,” Friend said .
Dialysis removes waste and excess fluid from the blood when the kidneys stop working properly. This usually involves diverting blood to a machine, the size of a fridge-freezer, where it is passed through a complex system of mechanical valves, pumps, and mixing chambers before returning to the body.
Patients usually do the procedure three times a week for four hours at a time. Of the 30,000 dialysis patients in the UK, only 5% use home devices because so far they have operated less efficiently than hospital systems, meaning patients need to be connected for longer periods.
In the Quanta device, called SC +, the pistons and the valve system are replaced by a disposable cartridge closed inside a flexible membrane, which is squeezed and released by pressure changes inside the machine to control the flow of dialysis fluid inside. The desktop machine is much smaller, does not require specialized training to use it and works as efficiently as the conventional version.
The technology was originally developed to reconstitute orange juice from concentrate, but the team behind the invention saw its possible medical applications and created the Quanta company.
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One patient, Lewis Till, 21, of Wolverhampton, has been on dialysis for two years after developing autoimmune kidney disease, but said hospital dialysis was not common enough to keep him “very well” and to travel. alone in the hospital was exhausting. After switching to the Quanta device, she is dialyzed five times a week for three hours, which has improved her health, and she can spend time with family or playing video games at home.
“I would like the general public to better understand kidney disease and how serious it is, because there is a lack of recognition so that people on dialysis don’t really get support or understanding of how hard it is,” he said. “This can make it difficult to try to explain to employers or friends and family how it affects your ability to get on with normal life.”
Quanta CEO John Milad said the device had been a “lifelong job to make it a reality” for the team behind the innovation, and that winning the award was a “huge validation of what we’ve got.” done “to transform lives.
Previous winners of the MacRobert Award include the engineers who developed Rolls-Royce’s iconic Harrier jump aircraft engine and the team that designed the Severn Bridge.