Introduction:

Chronic kidney disease is a frequent condition that demands the vital use of hemodialysis, a common procedure in patients who suffer from it; therefore, it is necessary to have adequate vascular access.

Objective:

To characterize patients with arteriovenous fistulas for hemodialysis at General Freyre de Andrade Clinical-Surgical Hospital.

Methods:

A descriptive-retrospective study was carried out in 88 patients with arteriovenous fistulas. The following variables were selected: age, sex, type of vascular access, location, immediate and late complications, and corrective procedure. The study period covered from January 2018 to January 2019.

Results:

A total of 88 arteriovenous fistulas were approached among all the patients. The male sex predominated (67%). The age group 50-59 years (36.4%) prevailed. The procedure for creating a humeral cephalic arteriovenous fistula (48.9%) was the most performed. Hematoma, thrombosis and infection were the immediate complications with the highest frequency (3.4%). Among late complications, thrombosis prevailed (3.4%); while thrombectomy prevailed as a corrective procedure (37.5%).

Conclusions:

As part of vascular access, the procedure for creating humeral cephalic fistula presented the best outcome in terms of patency and durability. On the other hand, the procedure for creating the humeral fistula was an alternative when the cephalic and basilic veins could not be used at the level of the elbow crease.

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