BackgroundThe surgically created arteriovenous fistula has recently been recommended as the best available angioaccess for hemodialysis. Therefore, in this study, we carried out a clinical analysis on surgical procedures in the ligation and division of a distal vein to achieve similar effects as those of vein end-to-arterial side after side-to-side anastomosis.MethodsWe retrospectively reviewed the clinical data of 113 patients who came for an outpatient clinic follow-up to the department of internal medicine of our hospital; these patients were among the 125 patients who underwent radiocephalic arteriovenous fistula (side-to-side anastomosis with distal vein ligation and division) in our hospital in the period from January 2006 to December 2010.ResultsThe patency rate showed no statistical significance with respect to sex (p=0.775), age (p=0.775), hypertension (p=0.262), diabetes (p=0.929), and cardio-neurovascular disease (p=0.717). Patency rates were 96% for the first month, 93% for the first year, and 90% for the second year for the radiocephalic arteriovenous fistula (side-to-side anastomosis with distal vein ligation and division) performed on the wrist.ConclusionThe patency rates revealed favorable results and few postoperative complications as compared to those of previous reports. Therefore, radiocephalic fistula using side-to-side anastomosis with distal cephalic vein ligation is considered a recommendable surgical procedure in the distal part for the hemodialysis of CRF patients.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether arterial stiffness plays a role in retaining normal diastolic function in a middle‐aged and elderly Korean population. A total of 267 patients without documented cardiovascular disease, 50 years and older (mean age, 57.3±6.3 years; 69.8% men) were retrospectively analyzed. All patients underwent both transthoracic echocardiography and brachial‐ankle pulse wave velocity measurement on the same day. Patients with septal annular peak velocity (e’) ≥8 cm/s and left atrial volume index <34 mL/m2 were considered as having normal diastolic function. Ninety‐eight patients (36.7%) had normal diastolic function. Low brachial‐ankle pulse wave velocity (<1314 cm/s) was an independent factor for determining normal diastolic function even after controlling for potential confounders in multiple logistic regression analysis (odds ratio, 2.58; 95% confidence interval, 1.46–4.57; P=.001). Our results suggest that compliant arteries may play an important role in maintaining normal left ventricular diastolic function in middle‐aged and elderly patients without documented cardiovascular disease.

No abstract