UCARE: medical device for the early diagnosis of acute kidney injury

The invention proposes an innovative system for the early diagnosis of acute renal failure (AKI) by monitoring diuresis for hospitalized patients in intensive care. The system is able to provide the attending physician in real time with the information necessary to be able to intervene promptly and prevent the onset of AKI with proprietary artificial intelligence algorithms.

Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) is a syndrome attacking kidneys causing a rapid decline in their functional capabilities. In most cases AKI occurs in conjunction with other diseases, typically related to cardiovascular and respiratory systems. For this reason, patients with the highest risk of incurring in AKI are older people, diabetic people, or people affected by hypertension and those having heart failure. 

In a general context of critical medical status of the patient, the lack of the function of purification and regulation carried out by the kidneys worsen the clinical condition turning out to be a fatal aggravating, contributing to the death of the hospitalized in 13% of cases and causing a 10 fold increase in mortality rate.

The main problem related to AKI is the difficulty in having a timely diagnosis of the syndrome. Indeed, 

the gradual loss of renal function, which leads to an AKI episode, is not clinically observable by monitoring physiological parameters or by looking at clinical examinations results. Therefore, the physician is not able to conduct specific therapies to prevent AKI, since there isn’t information about renal function and the risk of getting AKI.

The U-Care product consists of an early prediction system for acute kidney injury episodes in patients admitted to intensive care units. In this context, the high incidence of acute kidney injury and high healthcare costs allow U-Care to deliver the highest value to its customers. The product consists of a sensor to monitor the patient and an AI algorithm to predict kidney failure.

U-Care Medical has the advantage of being very accurate and very simple at the same time, thus allowing keeping production costs low and offering an extremely accurate output data; this results in a cost advantage.

Chemical biomarkers, such as those offered by companies Astute Medical and BioPorto, have the disadvantage of being discreet tests over time, not guaranteeing a continuous monitoring of the patient’s health status; plus, they are manual, thus requiring the intervention of an operator. Secondly, the accuracy of the device is one of the key features, as the competition in the industry is mainly based on the performance offered by the technology. The performance of Astute Medical and BioPorto, in terms of sensitivity and accuracy in assessing the level of risk of developing patient AKI are low, which is why market penetration is still very limited and their use is mainly for research purposes.