Patent ID: 8740836

Claim:
A peritoneal dialysis method comprising: enabling a disposable cassette to be aligned so that (i) a soft side of the disposable cassette faces towards a vacuum chamber and a piston head of a peritoneal dialysis machine and (ii) a dialysis fluid supply line, a patient line and a drain line extend from a hard part of the disposable cassette outside of the peritoneal dialysis machine to a respective dialysis fluid supply container, a patient and a drain; positioning the piston head relative to the vacuum chamber; applying a vacuum from a negative pressure source communicating pneumatically through the vacuum chamber to pull the soft side of the disposable cassette to the piston head to at least partially mate the soft side of the disposable cassette with the piston head; pushing fresh dialysis fluid from the disposable cassette through the patient line or spent dialysis fluid from the disposable cassette through the drain line as the piston head and the soft side of the disposable cassette are extended at least partially into the hard part of the disposable cassette; and drawing fresh dialysis fluid through the supply line or spent dialysis fluid through the patient line into the disposable cassette as the piston head retracts from the hard part of the disposable cassette while using the vacuum to hold the soft side of the disposable cassette in at least partial contact with the piston head.