Tomographic Ultrasound for Vascular Access
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Tomographic ULtrasound of the Upper Limb for Ateriovenous Access (TULULAA)
IRAS ID
279544
Contact name
Jonathan De Siqueira
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Leeds
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 23 days
Research summary
Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is a progressive condition which, in its terminal stage (End Stage Renal Failure (ESRF)), the kidneys cease to function to a degree where life cannot be sustained. Such patients must have their blood filtered artificially through a machine (dialysis). To generate high pressure blood flow, veins are surgically connected to arteries to create an arteriovenous fistula (AVF). Patients can then have dialysis using the blood flowing through the fistula. 30-50% of fistulas never function properly. It may be possible to use pre-operative parameters such as vein size and elasticity, or early findings such as the angle of the AVF to predict which AVF are likely to mature and which are likely to fail.
Tomographic ultrasound is a technique which laces together two-dimensional ultrasound images to create a three dimensional picture of an organ of interest.
We aim to judge whether data gathered from tomographic ultrasound may be used to ‘model’ the likelihood of a fistula maturing. This could be used to improve the surgical planning of fistulas and make sure that patients do not undergo futile surgery which will cause them pain and discomfort without much change of success in creating a working AVF.We would like to perform measurements of patients arteries and veins before and after they have a fistula formed. We hope to use this information to build a computer model of how fistulas mature. We hope that this information will later help us to predict which fistulas are more likely to be mature and in turn so that patients don't undergo operations which are unlikely to be successful.
REC name
West Midlands - Black Country Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/WM/0316
Date of REC Opinion
2 Dec 2020
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion