Stent Tek Limited: Improving outcomes for hemodialysis patients through minimally invasive vascular access creation.

全世界约有240万人患有肾脏疾病，他们的血液需要定期进行外部过滤。这种血液透析治疗需要他们的循环系统（即血液）定期连接到透析机。这需要患者通过在手臂上形成动脉和静脉之间的连接来进行外科手术来准备血管；叫做瘘管。然而，瘘管是不可靠的，经常堵塞并需要重复昂贵的修复手术（在美国每年花费46亿美元）。瘘管的失败也对生命构成严重威胁。本项目将探讨使用支架（合成管）形成瘘管并通过新型手术工具插入的概念。与外科手术相比，整个过程的侵入性要小得多，它旨在提供更好的长期稳定性，为患者及其家属提供更好的生活质量，并为医疗保健提供者节省大量成本。

Some 2.4m people worldwide have kidney conditions which require their blood to beroutinely externally filtered. This haemodialysis treatment requires their circulatory (i.e.blood) system to be regularly connected to a dialysis machine. This requires patients toundergo a surgical procedure to prepare their vessels by forming a connection between anartery and a vein in their arm; called a fistula. However fistulas are unreliable, often blockingand requiring repeated costly repair operations (costing US$4.6bn/year in the USA). Failuresof the fistula also present a serious danger to life. This project will investigate the concept ofusing a stent graft (synthetic tube) to form the fistula and its insertion via a novel surgical tool.The overall procedure will be significantly less invasive than surgery, and it aims to offerimproved long-term stability and provide a better quality of life for patients and their familiesand will result in significant cost savings to healthcare providers.