A Minimally Invasive and Highly Effective Extracorporeal CO2 Removal Device Combined With a Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy

OBJECTIVES: Extracorporeal carbon dioxide removal is used to treat patients suffering from acute respiratory failure. However, the procedure is hampered by the high blood flow required to achieve a significant CO2 clearance. We aimed to develop an ultralow blood flow device to effectively remove CO2 combined with continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT). DESIGN: Preclinical, proof-of-concept study. SETTING: An extracorporeal circuit where 200 mL/min of blood flowed through a hemofilter connected to a closed-loop dialysate circuit. An ion-exchange resin acidified the dialysate upstream, a membrane lung to increase Pco(2) and promote CO2 removal. PATIENTS: Six, 38.7 +/- 2.0-kg female pigs. INTERVENTIONS: Different levels of acidification were tested (from 0 to 5 mEq/min). Two l/hr of postdilution CRRT were performed continuously. The respiratory rate was modified at each step to maintain arterial Pco(2) at 50 mm Hg. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Increasing acidification enhanced CO2 removal efficiency of the membrane lung from 30 +/- 5 (0 mEq/min) up to 145 +/- 8 mL/min (5 mEq/min), with a 483% increase, representing the 73% +/- 7% of the total body CO2 production. Minute ventilation decreased accordingly from 6.5 +/- 0.7 to 1.7 +/- 0.5 L/min. No major side effects occurred, except for transient tachycardia episodes. As expected from the alveolar gas equation, the natural lung Pao(2) dropped at increasing acidification steps, given the high dissociation between the oxygenation and CO2 removal capability of the device, thus Pao(2) decreased. CONCLUSIONS: This new extracorporeal ion-exchange resin-based multiple-organ support device proved extremely high efficiency in CO2 removal and continuous renal support in a preclinical setting. Further studies are required before clinical implementation.