Arteriovenous access creation and hazards of hospitalization and death in patients starting hemodialysis

Abstract

Background: Recent evidence suggests an overestimation of the benefits associated with arteriovenous (AV) fistula versus graft in certain populations. We assessed hazards of all-cause and cause-specific hospitalization and death associated with AV access type in patients who started hemodialysis with a catheter in France, overall and by subgroups of age, sex and comorbidities.

Methods: We performed a target trial emulation including patients who initiated hemodialysis with a catheter from 2010 through 2018 and were followed by the REIN Registry. We identified first-created fistula or graft through the French national health-administrative database. We used joint frailty models to deal with recurrent hospitalizations and potential informative censoring by death, and inverse probability weighting to account for confounding.

Results: From the 18 800 patients included (mean age 68 ± 15 years, 35% women), 5% underwent AV graft creation first. The weighted hazard ratio (wHR) of all-cause hospitalization associated with graft was 1.08 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.02 to 1.15], that of vascular access-related hospitalization was 1.43 (95% CI 1.32 to 1.55), and those of cardiovascular- and infection-related hospitalizations were 1.14 (95% CI 1.03 to 1.26) and 1.11 (95% CI 0.97 to 1.28), respectively. Results were consistent for most subgroups, except that the highest hazard of all-cause, cardiovascular- and infection-related hospitalizations with graft was blunted in patients with comorbidities (i.e. diabetes, wHR 1.01, 95% CI 0.93 to 1.10; 1.10, 95% CI 0.96 to 1.26; and 0.94, 95% CI 0.78 to 1.12, respectively).

Conclusions: In patients starting hemodialysis with a catheter, AV graft creation is associated with increased hazard of vascular access-related hospitalizations compared with fistula. This may not be the case for death or other causes of hospitalization.

Keywords: arteriovenous fistula; arteriovenous graft; hospitalization; outcomes; vascular access.