A multicenter study of permanent hemodialysis access patency: beneficial effect of clipped vascular anastomotic technique.

Objective: There is an urgent and compelling need to reduce the morbidity and expense of maintaining hemodialysis vascular access patency. This large, long-term, retrospective, multicenter study, which compared access patency of autogenous arteriovenous fistulas (AVF) and synthetic bridge grafts (AVG) created with conventional sutures or nonpenetrating clips, was undertaken to resolve conflicting results from previous smaller studies.

Design: Patency data for 1385 vascular access anastomoses (clipped or sutured) was obtained from 17 hospitals and dialysis centers (Appendix).