Arteriovenous Fistula

Arteriovenous Fistula

It is defined as the abnormal connection between a vein and an artery. Normally artery carries oxygenated blood from your heart to your organs and tissue and supplies the oxygen and nutrients and veins carry deoxygenated from organs to the heart. Blood first flow through artery then capillaries and then return back to veins.

Symptoms

Signs and symptoms of arteriovenous fistula include:

Causes

General possible causes of arteriovenous fistule below mention:

  • Genetic conditions like other weber and diseases and hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia.
  • Congenital arteriovenous fistula
  • Injuries like a stab wound or gunshot injury
  • Chronic renal failure
Complications

If left untreated it may cause some serious complications to include:

Diagnosis

Your doctor after taking a medical history and doing physical examination might recommend the following tests to diagnose this condition:

  • Angiogram to visualize the vasculature.
  • Doppler ultrasound to check the blood pressure in vessels
  • MRA to check extent it fistula
Treatment

If the condition is mild and does not cause any serious signs and symptoms then it requires only close monitoring. The mild and severe condition may require the following treatment options:

  • Catheter embolization.
  • Ultrasound-guided compression to compress the fistula with the help of ultrasound images.
  • If your fistula is large enough and does not cure by catheter embolization and compression therapy then it requires surgery to treat the fistula.
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