Having a healthy kidney is worth a billion dollars. But an unhealthy kidney costs more - about $16 billion more, according to Prabir Roy-Chaudhury, MD, PhD, associate professor in the division of nephrology and hypertension at the University of Cincinnati (UC).
“It costs about $17 billion a year to care for patients with end-stage kidney disease,” he said.
There are currently over 320,000 people undergoing hemodialysis in the United States, a process that costs taxpayers a minimum of $60,000 per patient annually,
Hemodialysis is a technique in which a machine filters wastes out of a patient's blood once the kidney fails.
“In order to perform successful dialysis, it's critical to have a functioning vascular access,” Roy-Chaudhury said.
There are two main types of permanent dialysis access: an arteriovenous fistula, which connects the artery and the vein directly, and an arteriovenous graft, which connects the artery and the vein using a plastic tube.
Unfortunately, these connections may only last between six and 12 months due to stenosis, or narrowing of the veins.
As a result, hemodialysis patients often have repeated hospital admissions and surgeries in order to keep their dialysis access open.
In fact, problems associated with vascular access are probably the biggest factors that reduce the quality of life for hemodialysis patients, Roy-Chaudhury said.
“Hemodialysis vascular access dysfunction is viewed as the Achilles heel of dialysis,” he added.
In order to reduce the problems linked with hemodialysis vascular-access dysfunction, Roy-Chaudhury, UC surgeons Rino Munda, MD, and Steve Woodle, MD, and colleagues in engineering, radiology, cardiology and pathology have established the Cincinnati Dialysis Access Research Program (CAP).