The primary patency of drug-eluting balloon versus conventional balloon angioplasty in hemodialysis patients with arteriovenous fistula stenoses.

Objective: The aim of this article is to assess and compare the rate of primary patency achieved by drug-eluting balloon angioplasty (DEBA) and conventional balloon angioplasty (CBA) in hemodialysis arteriovenous fistula stenoses.

Methods: This retrospective study consists of 52 patients with significant arteriovenous fistulas stenoses who were treated with DEBA (n = 26) or CBA (n = 26) between January 2013 and January 2015. Only those patients with postprocedural technical and clinical success of 100 % were selected from the database. Primary patency rates of fistulas at 6 and 12 months were evaluated with Doppler ultrasonography as well as clinically. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to compare the primary assisted patency rates for the two groups.

Results: The type of AVFs were 41 (78.8 %) radiocephalic and 11 (21.2 %) brachiocephalic. Primary patency rates between the DEBA and CBA group had a statistically significant difference at 12 months (p < 0.05). However there was no statistically significant difference at the 6-month follow-up period (p = 0.449). There was no statistically significant difference among the patient age, patient gender and fistula type of the two groups (p > 0.05).

Conclusion: Drug-eluting balloon angioplasty proved to be an effective treatment of hemodialysis AVFs stenosis, with a high primary patency rate at 12 months.