Saint Luke's Hospital successfully performs complex surgery to provide long-term access to catheter dependent kidney dialysis patients
Physicians in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri informed kidney dialysis patient Jacqueline Rainey there was little they could do when her translumbar catheter, the access point in her back used for kidney dialysis treatment, began to fail. Rainey developed kidney failure at age four and has been off and on dialysis for the past 27 years.
With her catheter options exhausted, she was referred to the Saint Luke’s Hospital Dialysis Access Center, who offered Rainey another option: the Hemodialysis Reliable Outflow (HeRO) Graft, a fully subcutaneous AV access solution which provides long-term access when catheters no longer work.
“So many of us have been doing this for years and run out of options. My vascular system was lacking options, to say the least,” said Rainey. “This is opening up the flood gates and giving us hope.”
Unlike a catheter, the HeRO Graft is below the skin, which allows patients to expose skin to water and provides a higher flow rate, making dialysis easier and quicker for patients who undergo the treatment three times per week. The subcutaneous graft, which received FDA approval in 2008, reduces infection rates over catheters by 69 percent. Saint Luke’s Hospital is one of the only hospitals in the nation utilizing the cutting edge technology as a treatment option to help patients in renal failure potentially become viable for a transplant.
Jacqueline Rainey’s case presented a significant challenge: the HeRO Graft had been documented solely in use for patients with neck catheters, while Rainey’s catheter was translumbar, or in the back. In 2014 Saint Luke's physicians successfully performed a complex surgery combining the use of a HeRO Graft and a Flixene™ Graft to connect with the translumbar catheter in her back to provide long-term access for dialysis. CryoLife, Inc., manufacturer of the HeRO Graft, said that procedure has not been documented elsewhere in the country.
“Since receiving the graft last year, my post-dialysis numbers are good, I have more energy and I’m no longer stressed about access options. I have my life back,” said Rainey, who continues to undergo dialysis three mornings a week. Since receiving the HeRO Graft a little more than a year ago, Rainey has returned to college, written articles about dialysis and has begun writing a book. “None of this would have happened otherwise,” she said.
For information about dialysis access solutions and Saint Luke’s Hospital’s Dialysis Access Center, visit saintlukeskc.org.
Saint Luke’s Health System consists of 10 area hospitals and several primary and specialty care practices, and provides a range of inpatient, outpatient, and home care services. Founded as a faith-based, not-for-profit organization, our mission includes a commitment to the highest levels of excellence in health care and the advancement of medical research and education. The health system is an aligned organization in which the physicians and hospitals assume responsibility for enhancing the physical, mental, and spiritual health of people in the metropolitan Kansas City area and the surrounding region.