The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 13, 1997
Filed:
Apr. 03, 1995
Robert D Kross, Bellmore, NY (US);
Alcide Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
Compositions and methods are provided for sterilizing hemodialysis apparatus, particularly for reprocessing dialyzers in a manner that minimizes membrane perforations. The compositions contain a protic acid and a metal chlorite, and have a pH of at least about 2.3 and no greater than 4.2. Methods of this invention include contacting both the blood side and the dialysate side of a dialysis membrane with the composition, followed by first displacing the composition on the dialysate side with water or an aqueous alkali buffer having a pH in excess of about 6.0, such that the pH of the composition on the blood side of the dialysis membrane increases to at least about 5.0. The composition on the blood side is then displaced with saline. In a further embodiment, the composition has a pH ranging from 3.3 to 4.2, and the amount of chlorite ion in the form of chlorous acid ranges from 0.5% to 5.0% by weight of the total amount of chlorite ion in the composition. In this embodiment, the composition may be employed without associated membrane degradation by using existing hemodialysis set-up techniques, except that dialysate displacement on the dialysate side precedes saline displacement of blood side.