1 Department of Radiology and 2 Division of Nephrology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA
Correspondence and offprint requests to: Mark Lockhart, MD, MPH, Department of Radiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 619 19th Street, South Birmingham, AL 35249-6830, USA. Email: mlockhart{at}uabmc.edu
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Abstract |
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Methods. From 1 January 1999 to 30 June 2002, thigh grafts were placed in 54 haemodialysis patients who had exhausted all options for permanent vascular access in the upper extremities. Perioperative computed tomography (CT) of the abdomen and pelvis was obtained in 32 of the patients for diagnostic purposes unrelated to vascular access planning. Two radiologists, who were blinded to the graft outcomes, scored the vascular calcifications on CT of the distal aorta, common iliac, external iliac and common femoral arteries on a semi-quantitative 5-point scale. The association between technical graft failure (inability to complete the anastomosis) and the vascular calcification score was analysed.
Results. There was a high inter-observer agreement in scoring vascular calcification ( = 0.801). Among 26 patients with absent or mild pelvic arterial calcifications (grade 12) on CT, none (0%) experienced technical graft failure. In contrast, three of six patients (50%) with moderate to severe calcification (grade 35) had technical graft failures (P = 0.004 by Fisher's exact test). The cumulative 1 year graft patency was lower in the group with grade 35 calcification (33 vs 81%, P = 0.09). The two groups were similar in age, gender, race, diabetes, duration of dialysis, serum calcium, serum phosphorus and serum parathyroid hormone.
Conclusion. There is a strong association between pelvic artery calcifications and technical failure of thigh grafts. The presence of moderate to severe vascular calcification is predictive of poor cumulative 1 year graft patency.
Keywords: dialysis shunts; graft; Doppler ultrasound; haemodialysis; vascular calcification
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Introduction |
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It is not known whether vascular access outcomes in haemodialysis patients are associated with arterial calcification. In the subset of haemodialysis patients who have exhausted all options for permanent vascular access in the upper extremities, an arteriovenous synthetic graft is often placed in the thigh. The large diameter of the femoral vessels would suggest an excellent technical outcome of thigh grafts. To our surprise, we recently observed that the frequency of technical failure (inability of the surgeon to perform the anastomosis) was twice as high for thigh grafts, as compared with upper extremity grafts [12]. Review of the operative notes revealed the presence of severe arterial calcification precluding successful surgical femoral artery anastomosis to the graft in most patients with technical failures.
The goal of the present study was to evaluate retrospectively whether the magnitude of pelvic arterial calcifications measured in perioperative radiological studies correlated with the likelihood of technical failure of thigh graft placement.
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Methods |
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Graft technique and evaluation of outcomes
All A-V graft procedures were performed by one of three experienced Transplant Surgeons. The patients were evaluated by the surgeons for evidence of peripheral vascular disease. If peripheral vascular disease was suspected clinically, non-invasive studies were obtained. If there was a clinical suspicion of moderate or severe peripheral vascular disease, a thigh graft was not placed. In suitable patients, a PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) graft was anastomosed to the greater saphenous vein or common femoral vein, and then looped subcutaneously in the upper thigh and anastomosed to the femoral artery. Graft placement outcomes were obtained from the prospective dialysis database. Technical failure of graft placement was defined as inability of the surgeon to complete the graft anastomosis and obtain a patent graft at surgery.
Radiological vascular calcification scoring
Radiological studies are not obtained for pre-operative evaluation prior to thigh graft placement at our institution. However, using the hospital Radiological Information System, we identified 32 patients with thigh grafts who received CT scans of the abdomen and pelvis for unrelated diagnostic purposes during the time period surrounding the thigh graft placement. The median time between the CT scans and the thigh graft surgery was 213 days. These CT scans were used to grade the severity of pelvic arterial calcification in the study population. Most of the patients were evaluated by CT using a Lightspeed or CTi scanner (GE Medical Systems, Milwaukee, WI). The routine abdominal and pelvic CT used 5 mm axial images at 10 mm increments through the pelvis. Oral and intravenous contrast was given based on the clinical indication for the study. Patients without adequate radiological studies to grade the arterial calcification were excluded from this analysis.
Two radiologists with abdominal imaging specialization (M.E.L. and M.M.M.), who were blinded to the patients' clinical information and thigh graft placement outcomes, independently graded each CT scan for calcifications involving the distal aorta, common iliac arteries, external iliac arteries and common femoral arteries. Among patients with asymmetric involvement of bilateral arteries, the more severely involved side was used for analysis, since the reviewers did not know the side of graft placement. The overall severity of calcification was graded semi-quantitatively using a 5-point scale, ranging from absent or minimal calcifications to severe diffuse calcifications using the following criteria. (i) Grade 1: either (a) no arterial calcifications from the distal aorta to the common femoral arteries, or (b) minimal non-circumferential non-contiguous scattered arterial calcifications without 50% circumference involvement of any segments. (ii) Grade 2: mild non-circumferential non-contiguous arterial calcifications involving numerous segments with <50% involvement of most individual segments. Isolated non-contiguous images with >50% calcification may be present, but no areas of completely concentric vascular calcification. (iii) Grade 3: moderate non-circumferential non-contiguous calcifications of multiple arterial segments with >50% calcification of multiple segments, but without any completely concentric calcification of the arteries. (iv) Grade 4: moderate calcifications involving multiple segments of arteries with most areas having >50% involvement with calcification. Isolated completely concentric calcifications may be present. (v) Grade 5: diffuse calcifications with multiple levels of completely concentric calcifications.
Representative examples of CT scans with high and low calcification scores are shown in Figures 1 and 2.
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Statistical analysis
Cohen's test for an ordinal scale [14] was performed to evaluate inter-observer variability between the two blinded radiologists scoring the arterial calcifications in the CT scans. The association between technical thigh graft failure and vascular calcification score was evaluated using Fisher's exact test. Comparison of clinical and laboratory measurements between the groups with the high and low calcification scores was performed by
2 test, unpaired Student t-tests and non-parametric MannWhitney tests, as appropriate. A P-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant.
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Results |
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The inter-observer coefficient of agreement on calcification scores between the two blinded radiology observers was high, with a weighted value = 0.801, indicating substantial to near-perfect agreement. Because only five of the 32 CT scans were assigned intermediate calcification scores (2, 3 or 4), we divided the patients into two groups: those with low calcification scores (12) and those with high calcification scores (35). The two observers agreed on the classification of patients into the low or high calcification group in 31 of 32 (97%) cases.
Among the patients with a low calcification score (grade 12), none of 26 (0%) patients had a technical failure of thigh graft placement. In contrast, three of six (50%) patients with moderate to severe vascular calcification (grade 35) experienced a technical failure in graft placement (P = 0.004, Fisher's exact test). The cumulative thigh graft survival (from initial surgery to permanent failure) at 1 year was 33% in the high calcification group, as compared with 84% in the low calcification group (P = 0.09). Pelvic artery calcifications were generally most severe in the internal iliac arteries, but these arteries were not considered in the grading algorithm, because of our previous clinical experience suggesting that internal iliac calcifications were more prevalent even in patients with less severe arterial calcific disease. The next most severely calcified arteries were typically the common femoral arteries and the common iliac arteries. There were symmetric calcifications involving the common femoral arteries of at least 50% circumference in each lower extremity in all patients with moderate to severe calcifications.
Patients with severe vascular calcifications were more often male and older, and less often diabetic, but none of these differences reached statistical significance (Table 1). The duration of dialysis was similar between the two groups. Serum calcium levels tended to be higher among patients with higher calcification scores than those with low scores. The serum phosphorus, PTH, calcium x phosphorus product and serum alkaline phosphatase levels were similar between the two patient groups.
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Discussion |
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Peripheral arteries are also frequently calcified in dialysis patients [11]. The present study documents that moderate to severe calcification of the pelvic arteries is clinically significant, in that it frequently precludes successful construction of an arteriovenous thigh graft. Since these patients have already exhausted all options for permanent vascular access in the upper extremities, they will need to dialyse permanently with tunnelled dialysis catheters. Dialysis catheters are inferior to grafts in several respects. They become thrombosed and infected more frequently, and provide lower dialysis blood flows [17]. Moreover, catheter-dependent dialysis patients have more frequent infection-related hospitalizations and deaths [1820].
The aetiology of the severe pelvic artery calcification in our study is not clear. Patients with moderate to severe calcifications did not differ from those with absent or mild calcification in age, years on dialysis or frequency of diabetes. The two groups were also similar in biochemical markers of bone disease. It is possible that the patients with severe arterial calcification had a greater cumulative intake of oral calcium-based phosphate binders, but this could not be ascertained because of the retrospective nature of this study. The magnitude of vascular calcification may be affected by novel calcification inhibitors, such as matrix Gla-protein (MGP) and fetuin-A [7]. Warfarin, an inhibitor of MGP, may increase arterial calcification [7], but none of our patients in the high calcification group were anticoagulated.
The present study had several limitations. First, its retrospective nature could introduce potential biases in data analysis. However, it should be noted that a prospective, computerized database was used to identify all thigh graft procedures and their surgical outcomes, thereby ensuring a complete list. It is also possible that the subset of patients for whom perioperative CT scans were available differed from those patients missing such an evaluation. Even at our large dialysis centre (500 haemodialysis patients), only
15 patients received a thigh graft each year. Thus, duplicating the present study prospectively would require several years.
Secondly, we used a semi-quantitative calcification scoring system that was somewhat subjective, in contrast to previous studies that quantified calcification using electron beam CT [24]. However, the arterial calcification scores were determined by radiologists specialized in reading abdominal imaging. Moreover, the two observers were blinded to the clinical information on the patients and their thigh graft outcomes, precluding unconscious bias in scoring. Finally, there was a high degree of agreement between the two observers.
Thirdly, the CT scans used to score vascular calcification were not obtained specifically for surgical vascular access planning, and the median interval between the CT scan and thigh graft placement was 213 days. It should be noted, however, that 84% (27 out of 32) of the patients were in the least severe or most severe calcification categories. This means that the difference in arterial calcification between patients with successful and unsuccessful graft placement was striking. While it is possible that arterial calcifications may have progressed or regressed slightly in the time interval between the radiological study and the thigh graft surgery, it is extremely unlikely that patients would progress from minimal to severe calcification in such a brief time period.
In conclusion, the presence of moderate to severe pelvic arterial calcifications is strongly associated with technical failures of haemodialysis grafts placed in the thigh. However, a thigh graft was placed successfully in three of six patients in the high calcification group, suggesting the possibility of non-uniform arterial calcification that is not apparent on the CT scan. Given that the alternative to a thigh graft is long-term dialysis with a tunnelled catheter, it may still be reasonable to attempt a thigh graft in such patients, while recognizing that about half of these attempts will be unsuccessful.
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Acknowledgments |
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Conflict of interest statement. None declared.
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References |
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