The design of vascular access hemodialysis catheters reduces suction towards a vessel wall

Abstract

Vascular access hemodialysis catheters have been designed to overcome various challenges. For example, the catheters luminal diameter was increased to provide less resistance to the blood flow. The catheters were coated with an antithrombotic drug to avoid thrombus formation. The catheters occur trouble that suctioning towards a vessel wall during the treatment. So, we reported that rotating the catheter was effective to solve the trouble. This study aimed to investigate whether the structure of the aspiration holes on the catheter’s end can have an impact on the vessel wall suction. We analyzed 5 kinds of catheters with suction openings. We established an ex vivo evaluation system for visually confirming the adhesion of the catheter to the vessel wall by suction and for quantifying the extent of the adhesion. Using this model, we evaluated the catheters to come up with a solution for the problem. We found that the best catheter had wide openings and three-dimensional hole surface. On the other hand, the catheter with more wall adherence problems was the one with a simple suction pore structure. Our results suggest that the catheter’s tip structure does have a significant impact on the problem of the vessel wall suction, and that a careful tip design may improve the catheter’s performance.