title: Lessons from 494 permanent accesses in 348 haemodialysis patients older than 65 years of age: 29 years of experience.
abstract: Currently, patients older than 65 years of age constitute more than 42% of all new enrolments for dialytic treatment in the USA and Italy. Most of these patients are treated by in-centre haemodialysis (HD), with problems connected to vascular access. Personal experience of 494 new vascular accesses in 348 'difficult' HD-patients older than 65 years over 29 years showed the best results from 221 elbow fistulas in comparison with 32 forearm fistulas (78% vs 57.2% at 3 years; P < 0.05). Among various vascular substitutes, the homologous saphenous vein (HSV) graft, alone or mixed (MX) gave the best secondary patency in comparison with other organic-semiorganic (OSO) or synthetic graft (SYN) angioaccesses with values of 59.4% for HSV, 66.3% for MX, 21.9% for OSO, and 38.6% for SYN grafts, respectively at 3 years.
authors.affiliation: Vascular Surgery and Kidney Transplantation Unit, University of Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Berardinelli
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vegeto
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001166:Arteriovenous Shunt, Surgical / Q000009:adverse effects; D019917:Blood Vessel Prosthesis Implantation; D002408:Catheters, Indwelling / Q000009:adverse effects; D004550:Elbow; D005260:Female; D005542:Forearm; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D006435:Renal Dialysis; D012501:Saphenous Vein / Q000601:surgery