Clinical Study

Efficacy of SMART Stent Placement for Salvage Angioplasty in Hemodialysis Patients with Recurrent Vascular Access Stenosis

Table 1

Patient characteristics. Twenty-five SMART stents each were deployed in AVF and AVG cases. There was no significant difference, other than stent location, between the backgrounds of the patients in the two groups.

 ALLAVFAVG value

Number of patients502525
Number of stents502525
Age71.6 ± 11.371.2 ± 11.372.2 ± 11.6n.s.
Gender (M/F)24/2713/1210/15n.s.
Primary renal disease
 DM241212n.s.
 non DM261313
Hemodialysis history (years)7.3 ± 6.17.8 ± 6.26.6 ± 5.9n.s.
PTA history (times)4.6 ± 3.94.5 ± 3.54.8 ± 4.3n.s.
Difficult vascular access*502525
Poor general health** (%)35 (70%)18 (72%)17 (68%)n.s.
Use of antiplatelet agents492425n.s.
Stent location
 Upper arm224180.0002
 Lower arm28217

*Difficult vascular access; percutaneous endovascular therapy thought to have been the best treatment choice for the identified lesion because it is difficult to develop new vascular accesses in other lesions. **Poor general health; Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Performance Status grade 3 or 4.