What nephrologists need to know about vascular access cannulation.

This article describes cannulation events, especially problems, common and rare, minor and major, to aid the nephrologist (and mid-level providers e.g. nurse practitioner and physician's assistant) in decision-making to prevent or treat cannulation-related adverse outcomes. The usual management, potential outcomes, nephrologist intervention, and prevention are discussed and include: assessment of arteriovenous (AV) access and readiness for cannulation; initial cannulation of both arteriovenous fistulas and grafts; needle size and adequacy; needle direction and potential for recirculation; limited cannulation sites/buttonhole; pain and fear of pain; prevention of bleeding; management of infiltrations/extravasations; prevention and management of "one-site-itis"; prevention and management of infection. It concludes with the importance of the medical director as the leader of the continuous quality improvement (CQI) team in preventing/reducing cannulation-related adverse events.

CathAway fistula vascular access program achieves improved outcomes and sets a new standard of treatment for end-stage renal disease.

Hemodialysis patients using central venous catheters (CVCs) for vascular access are at greater risk of infection and death vs. arterial venous fistula (AVF). In 2008, DaVita initiated the CathAway quality improvement initiative, a multidisciplinary program to reduce CVC use in favor of AVF. Our retrospective analysis examined CVC use for incident (≤90 days) and prevalent (>90 days) patients receiving hemodialysis in the years 2006 to 2010. Outcomes included annual mean percentage of patients with CVCs, new CVC placements per 100 patient years, CVC survival, and percentage patient days with CVC. Over 152,000 patient records were reviewed. Between 76.2% and 79.7% of incident patients used a CVC annually, but for prevalent patients, the proportion decreased from 41.1% in 2006 to 33.5% in 2010. The number of new CVC placements per 100 patient years increased slightly for incident patients but fell annually from 64.8 in 2006 to 55.2 in 2010 for prevalent patients. The percentage of treatment days with CVCs was stable among incident patients (70.4%-74.3%) but fell among prevalent patients from 26.1% in 2006 to 16.5% in 2010. The mean duration of CVC use in incident patients was between 53.0 days (SD, 27.8) in 2006 and 54.1 days (SD, 28.1) in 2009, and for prevalent patients between 158.9 days (SD, 123.0) in 2006 and 128.1 days (SD, 112.0) in 2010. CathAway significantly decreased CVC use in prevalent hemodialysis patients. Decreasing incident patient use will require improvements in predialysis care.

Neuropsychological performance, impulsivity, and comorbid psychiatric illness in patients with pathological gambling undergoing treatment at the CORE Inpatient Treatment Center.

INTRODUCTION: Pathologic gambling is a disorder with features that implicate abnormal functioning in brain regions involved in addiction, mood, anxiety, and impulse control disorders. Our goal was to examine brain function with neurocognitive tasks that target these brain regions in patients with pathologic gambling. METHODS: Patients were evaluated for comorbid psychiatric disorders, impulsivity, and performance on reversal-learning and reward-based decision-making cognitive tasks. RESULTS: Patients had higher impulsivity scores and significant deficits on both cognitive tasks compared with controls. All subjects also had comorbid psychiatric disorders, including mood, anxiety, psychotic, and substance abuse. CONCLUSION: The cognitive deficits and impulsivity are consistent with abnormal activity in orbitofrontal-limbic networks. The high level of comorbidity is consistent with the overall severity in these inpatients undergoing treatment, and adds weight to the concept of a fundamental abnormality in this network.

Static intra-access pressure ratio does not correlate with access blood flow.

BACKGROUND: Access flow (Qa) measurement is recommended by Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (K/DOQI) as the preferred method for access surveillance. Static intra-access pressure ratio (SIAPR) measurement is the second surveillance method of choice. The purpose of this prospective multicenter study was to investigate the relationship between SIAPR and Qa and to examine the premise upon which SIAPR surveillance is based-namely, that high SIAPR is a surrogate for low Qa associated with hemodynamically significant stenosis. METHODS: SIAPR and Qa (HD01; Transonic Systems, Inc., Ithaca, NY, USA) were simultaneously measured monthly in 242 patients [146 prosthetic arteriovenous bridge grafts (AVG), 96 autogenous arteriovenous fistulas (AVF)] from three centers. SIAPR was measured according to the K/DOQI protocol. RESULTS: There was no correlation between Qa and venous or arterial SIAPR in AVGs (R(2)= 0.0037 and R(2)= 0.006, respectively, N= 730), or in AVFs (R(2)= 0.0247 and R(2)= 0.0329, respectively, N= 431). Of the high SIAPR measurements in AVGs, 81% and 50% were associated with Qa > or =600 and Qa > or =1000 mL/min, respectively. Of the AVGs studied, 41% (60/146) had consistently high Qa > or =1000 mL/min. Seventy percent (42/60) of these high-Qa AVGs had at least two consecutive sessions with high SIAPR measurements, thereby meeting the K/DOQI SIAPR criteria for referral. In addition, 78% (14/18) of new AVGs with Qa > or =1000 mL/min, and 86% (6/7) of AVGs with the highest Qa (> or =2000 mL/min), had high SIAPR. As a result, these high-Qa AVGs, which represented the best functioning AVGs by K/DOQI Qa standards, were erroneously targeted for referral based on SIAPR measurements. CONCLUSION: SIAPR does not correlate with Qa or discriminate between high and low Qa. Therefore, because the utility of SIAPR surveillance for detection of clinically significant stenosis depends on a correlation with Qa, the current use of absolute K/DOQI SIAPR thresholds for intervention based on the presumption that such thresholds are indicative of low Qa is not justified, and should be discontinued. Studies need to be done to examine the utility of SIAPR for trend analysis.