Background: The use of arteriovenous fistula over a central venous catheter in hemodialysis patients is recommended whenever possible. It has become the gold standard among all the available permanent vascular accesses for hemodialysis as it is associated with less complications. The aim of our study was to analyze the type of vascular access in hemodialysis patients in our country, FYR of Macedonia and to see its association with other variables recorded by the National Renal Registry in 2009.
Material and methods: Data were collected by 18 hemodialysis centers in the country. A total of 1,457 patients were analyzed. One hundred and ninety one patients were incident, and 164 out of 1,457 died during the year. Except for 9 patients, all the others had data on type of vascular access, as well as data on any vascular access intervention performed during the year.
Results: The overall mean age was 58.8 ± 13.1 years. Eighty-nine percent of the non-incident patients (prevalent plus those who died during the year) had arteriovenous fistula, 10.6% central venous catheter and 0.2% vascular graft. When incident to non-incident patients were compared, incident patients were significantly older, had significantly higher mortality and significantly lower percentage of arteriovenous fistula. Patients with arteriovenous fistula had significantly longer dialysis vintage and significantly less deaths compared to those with central venous catheters.
Conclusions: The study showed that the number of non-incident hemodialysis patients with arteriovenous fistula in the country was high. The incident hemodialysis patients have high number of central venous catheters as vascular access for hemodialysis and significantly higher mortality compared to non-incident patients. Hippokratia 2014; 18 (3): 209-211.
Keywords: arteriovenous fistula; hemodialysis; vascular access.