Protek+

Of the 15.2% of Americans with chronic kidney disease (CKD), over 700,000 have kidneys that have deteriorated to the point where they are unable to filter out wastes and ions from the blood. These substances can then accumulate within the bloodstream and become toxic to the patient. Hyperkalemia, or excess levels of potassium, is a particularly deadly condition that CKD patients are at risk for. Potassium is critical in the functioning of the heart, so hyperkalemia places dialysis patients at a high risk for serious conditions such as sudden cardiac arrest and death. Hence these patients are placed on a dialysis schedule that runs three times a week to minimize the chance of these adverse outcomes. However, every week there exists a two day period where individuals will go without treatment. During this gap of treatment, studies have found a significant increase in cardiac-related deaths, of which 42% of the deaths of dialysis patients are classified to be cardiovascular in origin, likely the result of overlooking hyperkalemia due to its silent symptoms. This problem is compounded as dialysis patients have no good way to determine their risk of hyperkalemia at home. This leads to patient deaths due to cardiac complications that can easily be prevented by patient awareness of their blood potassium. To overcome these obstacles, our team is building a portable, point of care blood potassium measurement device to allow patients to accurately assess their risk of hyperkalemia related complications.