Relationship between bovine carotid artery grafts for hemodialysis access and human leukocyte antigen sensitization
Bibliographic record
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Bovine carotid artery (BCA) Artegraft is a biologic graft that can be utilized as a conduit for permanent hemodialysis access and has been shown to outperform polytetrafluoroethylene grafts. However, concern regarding immunologic sensitization may limit the use of BCA in the transplant candidate. Panel reactive antibody (PRA) is an immunological test utilized in transplant recipient selection whereas increases in PRA limit access to transplantation. The purpose of our study was to determine whether BCA graft placement was adversely associated with increases in PRA. METHODS: Of patients listed for kidney transplant at our institution, we identified 10 patients who underwent BCA placement for hemodialysis access and a matched cohort of 10 patients who underwent native arteriovenous fistula (AVF) creation between 2014 and 2017. The PRA value nearest to the surgery date was compared to postsurgery PRA value for the BCA and AVF patients using a paired t test. Presurgery PRAs were also compared to the maximum PRA at 0 to 6, 6 to 12, 12 to 18, and 18 to 24 months postsurgery. FINDINGS: Prior to the dialysis access operation, the mean PRA was 14.1% ± 23.5% vs. 17.1% ± 29.0% (P = 0.76) and the median postsurgery follow-up time was 16 and 15 months for BCA and AVF cohorts, respectively. There were no statistically significant differences between presurgery and postsurgery PRA for BCA and AVF patients, regardless of time interval postsurgery. The difference in presurgery/postsurgery PRA change between cohorts was not statistically significant for PRAs closest to surgery (0.2% ± 40.6% vs. 1.0% ± 2.8%, P = 0.95, at a median 4 and 3 months postsurgery, respectively) or when using the maximum in any postsurgery interval. Prior to their dialysis access surgery, there were 16 sensitizing events in 5 patients in the BCA group compared to 10 events in 5 patients in the AVF group (P = 0.20). Only 1 of the 10 patients in the BCA group had a clinically relevant and sustained increase in PRA following their dialysis access operation vs. no patients in the AVF group (P > 0.99). However, this patient had a known sensitizing event (blood transfusion) between the BCA surgery and the postoperative PRA. Three of 10 patients in the BCA cohort vs. 5 of 10 patients in the AVF cohort went on to have successful kidney transplants (P = 0.65). DISCUSSION: The utilization of BCA for dialysis access was not associated with statistically significant changes in PRA. These data suggest that implantation of BCA will not affect access to organ transplantation.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".