Patent ID: 7481936

Claim:
Apparatus for carrying out patient fluid management comprising: an implantable filter device comprising a plurality of elongated hollow tubes and a plurality of elongated microporous fibers having an interior lumen extending along the length thereof, each fiber having a first and second end secured to different ones of said elongated hollow tubes, wherein the interior lumen of each of the fibers communicates with the interior of two of said hollow tubes, and wherein each of the elongated microporous fibers have an asymmetrical fiber wall morphology between the inner wall surface extending along the interior fiber lumen and the outer wall surface, said fiber wall having a higher mass density zone adjacent to the outer wall surface and a lower mass density zone adjacent to the inner wall surface, said higher mass density zone having a smaller average nominal pore size than the average nominal pore size in the lower mass density zone and wherein said fibers are configured to separate plasma from whole blood in-vivo by passing plasma through said fiber wall from the outer wall surface to the inner wall surface and to said interior lumen thereof; a multiple lumen catheter secured to the proximal end of the filter device having one or more lumens in fluid communication with the interior of said one or more hollow tubes and a plasma return lumen; and ultrafiltration apparatus having a sieving coefficient cutoff between about 1×10 4 and about 6×10 4 daltons and configured to separate plasma water and selected plasma components having molecular weights below the sieving coefficient cutoff point from the separated plasma, and tubing for directing plasma between said catheter and the ultrafiltration apparatus.