Preserved saphenous vein allografts for vascular access.

Preserved venous allografts were used as an alternate access procedure in 70 patients receiving dialysis during a three year period. The clinical experience with allograft fistulas revealed an extremely high initial patency rate; absence of infection postoperatively and during three years of dialysis; suitability for dialysis a week after implantation, thus greatly obviating the need for Silastic shunts; a low long term thrombosis rate and the weakly antigenic allograft veins produced no accelerated rejection of subsequently transplanted kidneys. Surviving patients average 172 dialysis treatments per allograft. Allograft fistulas constituted 45 per cent of the last 100 vascular procedures, an indication of the extent of usage. Microscopic examination of grafts retrieved from patients who died during the late follow-up period demonstrated that structural components of the wall of the vein were still identifiable. Allograft venous fistulas offer dependable, safe vascular access, especially in the infection prone patient with diabetes who is receiving dialysis treatment. The clinical results of allograft fistulas suggests a major role for this technique in vascular access operations.