Around 8 million people are affected by advanced CHF worldwide, and more than 1 million hospitalizations occur each year with fluid overload as predominant case. Each hospitalization for fluid removal costs €12k per patient, resulting in €60B annual cost in EU. Therefore, there is a critical need for more effective treatment that eliminate the frequent (12 times per year) and costly acute hospitalizations in the effected patients. Currently heart failure is the greatest burden on healthcare systems as it consumes around 2% of annual national budgets. The burden is expected to grow in the coming years due to aging of European population (more than 25% of current EU population) and risk factors such as tobacco, obesity and alcohol abuse. On the other hand, technological advancements have significantly reduced mortality rates due to fatal heart attacks or other structural and cardiovascular diseases. As consequence, there are more chronically ill heart failure patients requiring continuous attention. Currently, no available implantable device can continuously drain the accumulated fluids in excess and certainly cannot provide implantable ultrafiltration properties for patients with fluid congestion. In this context, IPUD is the first solution providing continuous monitoring and removal of extracellular fluids, hence reducing the hospitalizations and follow-up visits by 50%. It will also completely eliminate the need for aggressive and temporary intravenous diuretic therapy, and more importantly it will enable effective treatment for diuretic resistant population. The continuous fluid monitoring and removal will significantly improve quality of life of patients by preventing acute overload episodes, kidney failure and reducing the 50% death risk 5 years after the CHF diagnosis
