Vascular access: a never-ending story

U Hedin1

  • 1Department of Vascular Surgery Karolinska University Hospital and the Karolinska InstituteStockholm, Sweden - ulf.hedin@ ki.se.

Vascular surgeons are more and more becoming responsible for "life-line" creation well functioning and maintenance of hemodialysis patients and to provide a well functioning and multidisciplinary access service together with nefrologists, dialysis staff, and interventional radiology. For many, this sometimes arduous surgery with associated complicated clinical decision making, becomes a constant and challenging burden but much through the appearance of national and international guidelines and especially the endovascular technology, feasible solutions are easily at hand and the life as an access surgeon more pleasant. Here, basics in dialysis access care are presented together with some examples of novel available solutions to troublesome clinical problems.

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