Vascular access and chronic renal failure

From 1976 to 1999 a total of 8,849 surgical procedures for vascular access prior to dialysis were performed in the Department of nephrology at Skopje hospital (Macedonia). Cases included 3,114 native arteriovenous fistula (AVF), 715 arteriovenous shunts and 4,964 temporary or indwelling catheters (4,411 (88.86%) in the femoral vein, 410 (8.26%) in the subclavian vein, 143 (2.88%) in the jugular vein and 56 PTFE vascular grafts). Femoral catheterization is the favoured solution for repeated dialysis (90.50% of the 3,440 procedures for indwelling vascular access). Subcutaneous indwelling catheters were used in 270 (7.90%) cases, with vascular access taking place in either the femoral (99 cases), subclavian (123 cases) or jugular vein (48 cases). Biosynthetic vascular grafts represent only 1.6% of all procedures for vascular access. The number of preventive AVFs has been increasing steadily from 14% in the 1980s to 20.8% in the 1990s and 31.50% in 1999. The majority of preventive AVFs (71.80%) and a large number of other surgical procedures for vascular access (44.40%) are performed in day hospital.