Intraoperative use of transit time flow measurement improves patency of newly created radiocephalic arteriovenous fistulas in patients requiring hemodialysis.

Background: The autologous arteriovenous fistula is the primary choice to establish hemodialysis access without high failure rates. Intraoperative ultrasound flow measurements of newly created autologous arteriovenous fistulas represent a possibility of quality control and may therefore be a tool to assess their functionality. The aim of our study was to correlate intraoperative blood flow with access patency.

Methods: Between March 2012 and March 2015, intraoperative transit time flow measurements were collected on 89 patients. Measurements were performed 5-10 min after the creation of a standardized anastomosis using 3-6 mm flow probes. To examine the correlation between intraoperative blood flow and access patency, groups of patients with high (> 200 mL/min) versus low flow (< 200 mL/min) were enrolled. Patients were assessed clinically and with ultrasound every 3 months. Data were analyzed retrospectively.

Results: In the current short-term follow-up, including 89 patients (age 62 ± 3 years), 61 (68.5%) of the autologous arteriovenous fistulas were currently being used in an observation period ranging from 3 months to 3 years (mean observation period 546 ± 95 days) postoperatively. The intraoperative blood flow in patients with functioning autologous arteriovenous fistula (78) was significantly higher than that of patients without functioning autologous arteriovenous fistulas (407 ± 25 vs 252 ± 42 mL/min, respectively;  < 0.005) (11).

Conclusion: The intraoperative measurement of blood flow is a useful tool to predict the outcome of maturation in autologous arteriovenous fistula. With this method, technical problems can be detected and corrected intraoperatively. Routine implementation of intraoperative flow measurements has to be examined by prospective controlled trials.