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Dialysis intervention is an interventional radiology procedure that is used to fix a blocked or narrowed venous or arterial access point for dialysis.
If your child has acute kidney injury or chronic kidney disease, he or she may require dialysis to help clean the blood. If the access point for dialysis is not working well due to a blood clot, narrowed vein or other issues, he or she may require a dialysis intervention.
There are several ways the interventional radiologist can perform a dialysis intervention, including:
A dialysis intervention normally takes about one to two hours, including any sedation your child may need.
Angioplasty, stent and fistulagram procedures are performed through a small incision made in the vein or dialysis graft in the arm that is just under the skin.
The process includes the following steps:
If your child’s procedure is an expansion of a vein in the arm, he or she will stay an hour or two and then go home. If it is time for dialysis, the dialysis technician can insert a catheter immediately and begin dialysis treatment.
Dialysis interventions carry some risks. Sometimes the incision may bleed, and in rare cases, infection is possible. There can be bleeding through the skin or under the skin. An allergic reaction to the dye used during the procedure is rare. Another rare occurrence is a blood clot forming and being carried by the blood into the lung (pulmonary embolism). These complications are rare. Your child's doctor strives to provide the safest care possible.
In addition to our primary hospital location at the Academic Health Center in Indianapolis, IN, we have convenient locations to better serve our communities throughout the state.
