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Devices designed to perform in-vivo blood dialysis, a procedure that combines the separation of molecules with different characteristics through a semipermeable membrane (diffusion) and the simultaneous movement of fluid through the membrane under imposed pressure gradients (ultrafiltration). These devices typically consist of three basic elements: a compartment containing the blood to be dialyzed, a compartment containing the solution that performs the dialysis (i.e., dialysate), and a semi-permeable membrane separating them. Dialyzers may be reusable for a single patient or a single-use (i.e., only one time) components of a hemodialysis system. Hollow fiber (also known as capillarity) design is the most common design in dialyzers; parallel plate dialyzers are less frequently used. Coil dialyzers are rarely used, if ever, at the present time. Hemodialysis dialyzers (also known as artificial kidneys) are used to cleanse a patient\'s blood from impurities caused by acute failure or more frequently chronic malfunction of the kidneys.
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