Elastic Recoil after Balloon Angioplasty in Hemodialysis Accesses: Does It Actually Occur and Is It Clinically Relevant?

Purpose To qualify and quantify elastic recoil and determine its effect on access patency. Materials and Methods Research ethics board approval was obtained and all patients signed an informed consent form. This was a prospective, nonrandomized study of mature accesses that underwent balloon percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) between January 2009 and December 2012. After PTA, completion fistulography was performed at 0-, 5-, 10-, and 15-minute intervals. From Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine images, percentage of lesion stenosis before and after PTA was measured at each time point. A total of 76 patients (44 men, 32 women; mean age, 59.6 years) were enrolled and underwent 154 PTAs in 56 grafts and 98 fistulas. Venous elastic recoil was defined as recurrent luminal narrowing greater than 50% within 15 minutes after full effacement of the stenosis by the angioplasty balloon. Data collected included sex, age, access type and location, lesion location, length, and time to next intervention. Access patency was estimated by using Kaplan-Meier survival method, association of variables with the risk of loss of patency was assessed by using a Cox proportional hazards model, and a multiple variable model was examined by considering all variables. Results Technical success of PTA with less than 30% residual stenosis was 78%. By 15 minutes, 15.6% (24 of 154) of treated lesions recurrently narrowed by more than 50%, with a majority observed at 5 minutes (15 of 24). Technical failure of PTA was predictive of elastic recoil (P < .001), as was cephalic arch stenosis in fistulas (P = .047) and autogenous fistulas (P = .04). Elastic recoil, when it did occur, did not influence patency. Six-month primary patency was 34.8% in grafts and 47.1% in fistulas. Conclusion Venous elastic recoil after PTA of stenoses in hemodialysis access circuits is common, but its occurrence does not influence access primary patency after PTA. (©) RSNA, 2015.