MRI Assessment of the Arterio-Venous Fistula

Monica Sigovan¹, Vitaliy Rayz¹, Petter Dyverfeldt¹, Warren Gasper², Christopher Owens², David Saloner¹

Local hemodynamic factors are one of the key elements that could help explain the high rate of failure of autogenous arterio-venous fistulas (AVF), access ports that are created in long terms dialysis patients. The aim of the work presented here was to develop an MRI protocol combined with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations for the detailed assessment of the hemodynamic parameters of AVFs. Simulations were carried out on patient-specific geometries obtained by manual segmentation of 3D time of flight (TOF) data. The initial results show good promise in applying this protocol to a longitudinal study of AVF progression.