Italian scientists have developed a mini-kidney dialysis machine for treating the smallest babies with kidney problems, and have for the first time used it to treat safely a newborn with multiple organ failure.

Experts say this new machine could potentially revolutionise the treatment of infants with acute kidney injury.

The new machine,named CARPEDIEM (Cardio-Renal Pediatric Dialysis Emergency Machine), was developed to overcome the problems of existing kidney machines that are only designed for adults and have to be altered for use in newborn babies and small infants.

"Such modifications make adult devices inaccurate when used in infants smaller than 15kg and can result in complications with fluid management and treatment delivery", said Professor Claudio Ronco from San Bortolo Hospital in Vicenza, Italy, who was one of the team that developed the machine.

He said a major problem is the potential for errors with adult dialysis equipment, which has has a tendency to either withdraw too much fluid from a child, leading to dehydration and loss of blood pressure; or too little fluid, leading to high blood pressure and a build up of excessive fluid in the body.

To address these challenges, Professor Ronco and his colleagues developed a miniaturised machine for newborn babies and small infants weighing between 2kg and 10kg.

It has the capacity to very low blood and filtration flows compared to adult dialysis machines, allowing the use of a much smaller catheter than is usually used in children, which could prevent damage to blood vessels.

Last August at the San Bortolo Hospital a newborn baby weighing just 2.9kg became the first patient in the world to be treated with the device following multiple organ failure after complicated delivery.

The treatment was successful, and after more than 20 days of therapy with the smaller machine, the child was able to come off the machine.

Organ function was restored and the baby was discharged from hospital after 50 days.

The new machine is reported on in the Lancet journal.