Preventing complications leading to arteriovenous graft failure

Determine effective preventive strategies to avert complications—including thrombosis, anastomotic obstruction/stenosis, and infection—in arteriovenous grafts so as to reduce graft failure risk and improve patency outcomes.

Background

Arteriovenous grafts are widely used for hemodialysis access but exhibit substantial failure rates, with primary patency often below 70% at one year. Complications such as thrombosis, anastomotic obstruction/stenosis, and infection are major contributors to loss of patency.

While therapies exist to maintain graft patency, the paper explicitly notes persistent uncertainty regarding how to prevent these complications proactively. The authors investigate haemodynamic determinants and graft geometry to mitigate disturbed flows, but the broader clinical question of definitive prevention strategies remains unresolved.