A three-year follow-up on standard versus thin wall ePTFE grafts for hemodialysis

Abstract

Standard thickness ePTFE is the graft of choice when placing ePTFE arteriovenous grafts for hemodialysis.

The Longevity of Arteriovenous Graft for Hemodialysis Patients—Externally Supported or Nonsupported

“…Covariates include sex, age, time of vascular access creation, and congestive heart failure disease. implantation rate of externally supported AVG might relate to the possible difficulties in graft puncture and previous limited small studies supporting the longer patency (11)(12)(13)(14).…”

“…Therefore, several externally supported grafts with additional plastic rings (in spiral or circular form) encircling the outer surface of the graft to enhance incompressibility and kinking resistance help to improve the patency of AVG and reduce the number of costly procedural interventions to restore patency (9 -14). However, consensus on the advantage of these externally supported grafts having still not been reached might relate to the previously limited patient numbers and small studies (12,13). In this study, we analyzed the longevity between externally supported and nonsupported AVG via the nationwide database of the National Health Insurance (NHI) in Taiwan to understand whether the externally supported AVG could improve the duration of primary unassisted graft patency of incident patients with regular hemodialysis (HD).…”

Patency Rates and Complications of Exxcel Yarn-Wrapped Polytetrafluoroethylene Grafts Versus Gore-Tex Stretch Polytetrafluoroethylene Grafts: A Prospective Study

“…8 However, the English-language literature contains limited prospective data comparing the efficiency of different grafts used for hemodialysis access. [9][10][11][12] To our knowledge, there is no published study comparing the patency of Exxcel and Gore-tex grafts. Accordingly, the present work may be the first to objectively evaluate the clinical patency of yarn-wrapped outer surface grafts (as Exxcel grafts) for dialysis access.…”

Current Status of Synthetic and Biological Grafts for Hemodialysis

“…In order to examine the effect of wall thickness on patency, Lenz et al 17 investigated both standard wall and thin wall configuration of PTFE. Although the incidence of complications and mortality did not statistically differ amongst the 2 groups, standard ePTFE had better patency rates.…”