Daily dialysis and survival rates of vascular access

Summary A major cause of morbidity for haemodialysis patients is vascular access failure and/or occlusion. It is commonly believed that increased frequency of dialysis sessions, among other factors, might lead to higher rates of fistula complications. To evaluate if patients on daily haemodialysis carry a higher risk of vascular access occlusion, we examined the raw incidence rate of access occlusion and the survival function of native vascular access in patients undergoing daily dialysis (DD ‐ N. =24) as compared to patients on standard three times a week haemodialysis (TWD‐N. =198). The number of thrombotic events in the first group was 2 (8%) whereas in the second group we observed 76 (38%) access problems (8%) (p