Introduction: As is universally accepted the best form of permanent vascular access for haemodialysis is the native arteriovenous fistula. A second and third options are the politetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) AV grafts and the cuffed, tunneled, internal catheters. The overall performance and complications of catheters is clearly inferior to AV fistula. There are not many studies that compare permanent catheters to grafts in terms of functionality, survival and complications.
Methods: We analyzed 81 vascular accesses carried out from october 99 to december 03 in 59 patients and during a follow-up period of 35 months. Two groups were considered. Group 1, catheters (n 42) and group 2, grafts (n 39). Clinical aspects, comorbidity index (Wright and Kanh), dialysis dose and complications and survival of the access were registered.
Results: Both groups were similar in age, sex, time on haemodialysis, number of previous accesses and hospitalization days. Cardiovascular morbidity and comorbidity index were significantly higher in patients with catheter. While blood flow during dialysis was higher in grafts both groups showed no significant differences in parameters of efficacy of dialysis (Kt/V, TAC BUN and PCRn). Serum albumin was lower in patients with catheter. The number of accesses that failed was higher in the graft group being thrombosis the main complication followed by infection. Kaplan-Meier curves showed better accumulated survival of permanent catheters versus grafts (61,4% vs 9,8% at 35 months). The most frequent complication of catheter was infection while in the case of grafts it was thrombosis followed by infection.
Conclusions: Although they were placed in patients with higher comorbidity, cuffed, tunneled catheters showed less number of complications and better survival than PTFE grafts in our patients in haemodialysis. The main cause of failure of both vascular access was thrombosis followed by infection. The dose of dialysis obtained was no different in both groups. Cuffed, tunneled permanent catheters are a very interesting option in a number of patients in haemodialysis and they can be an option to consider in those patients with vascular difficulties and higher comorbidities.