Experience with the Hemasite vascular prosthesis

A 3-year experience with the no-needle vascular prosthesis Hemasite, implanted in 10 patients who underwent hemodialysis and have a long history of multiple vascular access failures, is described. During 182 months of follow-up study, 30 thromboses occurred, while nine of 10 patients did not receive any antiplatelet aggregant treatment. Hemasite was declotted 12 times with a local infusion of urokinase and 12 more times by thrombectomy. A surgical procedure was performed only in the other cases, and the rate of surgical intervention fell from 0.18 interventions per patient per month before Hemasite implantation to 0.027 after implantation.