SONAR - 12 Month Follow Up (SONAR-12M)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Surveillance Of arterioveNous fistulAe using ultRasound - 12 Month follow up (SONAR-12M. A follow up study of participants who took part in SONAR; a prospective observational cohort study to determine whether ultrasound surveillance can reliably predict arteriovenous fistulae failure in patients with chronic kidney disease.
IRAS ID
290717
Contact name
Gavin Pettigrew
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and University of Cambridge
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
If a person develops kidney failure, the build-up of toxins and fluid can be fatal within a few days if untreated. Patients with kidney failure need either a replacement kidney (kidney transplant) or for the excess fluid and toxins to be removed from the body (dialysis).
The commonest form of dialysis involves blood being filtered by a machine to remove toxins and excessive fluid (haemodialysis). This requires a brisk flow of blood through the machine to allow the toxins to be removed. The safest way to achieve sufficient flow in the machine is by joining one of the veins to one of the arteries in the arm (an arteriovenous fistula). With time, this fistula increases in size and allows sufficient flow dialysis nurses to put two needles into the fistula (one taking blood from patient to machine, the other returning the “cleansed” blood to the patient).
Unfortunately, up to half of arteriovenous fistulas fail within a year of being created. The reasons why this happens and how we can prevent it are largely unknown.
In 2018/2019 we ran the SONAR study, where patients underwent ‘Doppler ultrasound’ (a non-invasive scan that uses high-frequency sound waves to create a picture of the blood flow in the fistula) in an attempt to identify early problems with a fistula that may lead to it failing. In SONAR, we followed patients up for 10 weeks after their fistula operation performing 4 scans during that timeframe.
In SONAR-12M, we would like to ask the SONAR participants for consent to access their medical records to see if their fistulas are still functioning and ever provided good access for dialysis.We want to find out whether ultrasound can successfully identify fistulas that might have problems so we can intervene early to try and prevent the fistula from failing.
REC name
West Midlands - Edgbaston Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/WM/0331
Date of REC Opinion
20 Jan 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion