Hemodialysis access failure: viscoelastic vascular properties an intimal hyperplasia development

Intimal hyperplasia development is largely the most important cause of vascular access failure in patients submitted to hemodialysis. Differences in the biomechanical properties be- tween the vascular substitutes and the native vessels have been related to the development of intimal hy- perplasia. This work aim was to characterize the biomechanical behavior of arteries, veins, cryopre- served arteries and ePTFE prostheses. Fresh and cryopreserved human arteries and veins and ePTFE conduits were in-vitro studied in order to analyze their viscoelastic properties. Our results show that ePTFE has an elastic index, which is significantly different from that of the other conduits. This determines a high elastic mismatch that has been involved as a cause of intimal hyper- plasia development. We conclude that the biomechanical study of tu- bular segments to be used as vascular accesses dem- onstrate viscoelastic differences that could be an im- portant determinant of access viability.