Background: Current methods of measuring the quality of journals assume that citations of articles within journals are normally distributed. Furthermore using journal impact factors to measure the quality of individual articles is flawed if citations are not uniformly spread between articles. The aim of this study was to assess the distribution of citations to articles and use the level of non-citation of articles within a journal as a measure of quality. This ranking method is compared with the impact factor, as calculated by ISI ® .

Age did not affect usability, primary or secondary patency of either RCAVFs or BCAVFs. Although patient selection is important, even patients > or =80 years who are considered suitable for surgical placement of access should not be denied a RCAVF solely because of age.