Around one in 10 Canadians has kidney disease and millions more are at risk.
According to the Kidney Foundation of Canada, the number of people living with end-stage kidney disease or kidney failure has grown 35 per cent since 2009, with 46 per cent of new patients under the age of 65.
Hemodialysis is a life-sustaining treatment for kidney failure patients to clean and filter their blood of waste products, salts and excess fluid.
However, this membrane-based therapy is not perfect, and hemodialysis patients experience acute side-effects, life-threatening chronic conditions and unacceptably high morbidity and mortality rates.
