Tailoring hemodialysis vascular access : preoperative imaging techniques and computational modeling

For adequate hemodialysis, patients with terminal kidney failure are dependent on a well functioning vascular access. In spite of extensive preoperative echo examination, frequent complications occur as a result of the fact that the vascular access is placed on a wrong location. This means a too high or too low blood flow.
This dissertation describes three methods that can limit these complications: 1) extend the preoperative examination with a scan that visualizes all blood vessels in the arm as a whole, 2) conduct elasticity measurements of the blood vessels in the upper arm, and 3) the preoperative prediction of the height of the blood flow after the operation for vascular access at various locations in the arm by means of a computer simulation model.