The impact of vascular diameter ratio on hemodialysis maturation time: Evidence from data mining approaches and thermodynamics law

BACKGROUND Vascular Access (VA) is an important aspect for blood circulatory in Hemodialysis (HD). Arteriovenous Fistula (AVF) is a suitable procedure to gain VA. Maturation of the AVF is a status of AVF, which can be cannulated for HD. This study aimed to discover the parameters that effectively reduce the duration between VA and start of HD, which symbolizes the maturation time (MT). METHODS Ninety-six patients who underwent AVF creation were selected for this study. The decision tree method was used based on CART/C4.5 algorithm, which is one of the data mining approaches for data classification. Vascular diameter ratio (VDR) coefficient was obtained (VDR=Artery/Vein diameters). RESULTS We investigated the relationship between the VDR and MT in this study and found that MT is reversely related to VDR in elderly patients, while this relation was direct in younger patients. CONCLUSION The analysis revealed a Spearman's correlation coefficient for Vein diameter with MT. MT decreases when diameters of vein and artery are close to one another. This study can help the surgeons to identify high- risk patients who elongate MT for HD.