Thigh grafts contribute significantly to patients' time on dialysis.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Thigh grafts are placed in hemodialysis patients who have exhausted all arm access sites. The goal of this study was to compare the survival, complication rates, and overall contribution of thigh grafts with arm grafts and fistulas in patients with at least one functional thigh graft during their dialysis history. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS This longitudinal review of a prospectively acquired clinical database included 85 thigh graft recipients. The rates of survival, thrombosis, infection, and other complications were determined for a total of 268 fistulas, arm grafts, and thigh grafts placed in these patients. RESULTS In this patient subset, thigh graft primary failure rate was lower than arm grafts and fistulas (3 versus 13 and 61%, respectively). Excluding primary failures, thigh grafts survived longer than both arm grafts and mature fistulas (53 versus 14 and 32%, at 3 years; 47 versus 3 and 11% at 5 years). Thigh grafts had a lower thrombosis rate than arm grafts (0.543 versus 1.457/patient-year) but similar rates of loss as a result of infection and surgical revision. In patients with previous arm accesses, thigh grafts contributed 51% of total dialysis time compared with 38 and 11% for arm grafts and fistulas. CONCLUSIONS Thigh grafts provide long-term, thrombosis- and infection-free dialysis access for patients with exhausted arm access sites. The decision for thigh graft placement should, therefore, be made as soon as there is evidence for unavailability of arm access sites so that catheter use can be minimized.