artificial kidney
English
Noun
artificial kidney (plural artificial kidneys)
- A dialysis machine, an external device that cleans the blood of people with kidney failure; from the 1940s to the 2000s, not portable, but wearable versions now exist.
- 2013 June 1, “A better waterworks”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 5 (Technology Quarterly):
- An artificial kidney these days still means a refrigerator-sized dialysis machine. Such devices mimic the way real kidneys cleanse blood and eject impurities and surplus water as urine.
- An implantable bionic device to replace the function of a natural kidney, long dreamed of but not yet feasible.
- A bioengineered (laboratory-grown) biologic kidney (from cultured cells), still experimental.
Coordinate terms
- kidney transplant