Vascular Access Centers
The Vascular Access Centers are dedicated to caring and maintaining your dialysis access. Patients on dialysis understand the importance of blood to be easily taken from an access point. At local Vascular Access Centers, interventional nephrologists perform outpatient procedures to protect and increase access performance. The ideal hemodialysis access is an artery to vein shunt that delivers high blood flow, easy cannulation.
Most fistula failures or graft failures are caused by a narrowing of the blood vessel. If we catch the problem in time, we may be able to keep the access open and working longer.
Reasons to be checked
Below are a few reasons you should have your access checked.
- Poor blood flow (a measure of the adequacy of a dialysis treatment)
- Poor KT/V
- Difficulty cannulating
- High venous pressures
- Excessive bleeding after dialysis
- Failure of a fistula to mature
- Decrease access blood flow by indirect measurements