June 2014
No. 01
A European wide project coordinated by the University of Dundee, focused on combating
vascular access failure in kidney dialysis patients. http://www.redva.eu
The Aim of the Project
The ReDVA project is a joint industry-academia research programme aiming to capitalise on the
knowledge and expertise of inter-disciplinary research centres in Renal Medicine, Vascular Biology,
Vascular Surgery, Medical Physics, Clinical Imaging, (CT,MRI and Ultrasound), Imaging Contrast Media,
and Computational Fluid Dynamics. The partnership includes the Universities of Dundee, Limerick and
Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham and commercial partners, Vascular Flow Technologies Ltd and
Guerbet, Paris. This 4 year European project is targeted at improving the performance and longevity
of renal dialysis venous access which underpins the life supporting haemodialysis techniques used in
patients with kidney failure and renal replacement programmes.
Prof Houston beside one of the five MRI scanners
situated within the Tayside region
Knowledge Exchange
An important part of the ReDVA project is
knowledge exchange between partners. This
includes regular teleconferences, workshops,
meetings and secondee placements
between Dundee, Birmingham, Limerick and
Paris.
Currently Deirdre Cassidy, University of
Dundee, is spending a year with Guerbet in
Paris. The main aim of Deirdre’s secondment
is to gather background literature on
vascular access and to assist in future data
mining.
Deirdre will shortly be joined in Paris by
Birmingham secondee Dr Zaib Khawaja.
UoD Secondee
Deirdre Cassidy
The Investigators: Professor Graeme Houston,
Ninewells Hospital
Prof Graeme Houston is the principle investigator of
the ReDVA project. He spends 50% of his time
working as an interventional radiologist within the
NHS and the other 50% of his time involved in
cardiovascular and diabetes research with the
University of Dundee. Graeme and his multidisciplinary research team will focus on
understanding the application of computational
fluid dynamics in the commercial development of
vascular devices as well as clinical imaging and
contrast media in relation to developing and
optimising technologies for ReDVA.
Guerbet Headquarters, Paris, France .
Meeting and Workshops: Paris April 2014
April saw the second multi-disciplinary meeting of
the ReDVA group. The meeting was hosted by our
industrial partners, Guerbet, at their headquarters
in Paris, and brought together specialists from
medicine, science and industry. Guerbet specialise
in medical imaging products for X-ray examinations,
Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Interventional
Radiology and will be involved in the development
of new methods of assessing vascular access using
imaging techniques.
Patient Questionnaires
We hope to distribute questionnaires to all
patients in our Birmingham and Dundee renal
units by the early autumn. These questionnaires
will hopefully provide us with valuable
information on individual dialysis sessions and
regular dialysis routines. It is believed that the
information gathered from these questionnaires
will contribute to our understanding of why
some patients have real problems with their
vascular access sites whilst others do not.
Patients can look at the questionnaires before
deciding whether or not they want to complete
one. Help to fill out the questionnaires will be
provided if requested. The more competed
questionnaires we receive back, the more we
can potentially learn - so we would really
appreciate your help with this part of the
project.
Abstracts
The first ReDVA scientific abstracts have been
submitted to the American Society of
Nephrology who are holding their annual
conference in Philadelphia, USA this November.
Deirdre Cassidy, with assistance from Zaib
Khawaja, submitted an abstract assessing the
content and consistency of international clinical
practice guidelines in terms of vascular access
pre-operative recommendations whilst Shona
Matthew & Alexandra Webb submitted two
abstracts looking at improving blood flow
parameters in central vein catheter dialysis and
re-introducing spiral flow in a vascular access
graft using a spiral inducing stent.
ReDVA Website
You can keep up to date with the progress of
the ReDVA project through our regular
newsletters
or
through
our
website
www.ReDVA.eu The overall results of our
patient questionnaires will be posted on the
ReDVA website once we have completed our
data analysis.
Patient Blog
An important part of our website will be patient
journeys – good and bad. So if you would like to
share your vascular access experiences with the
wider renal community, please contact Shona
s.z.matthew@dundee.ac.uk who can arrange
for your story to be included in our patient blog.
Meetings and Workshops: Dundee May 2014
Michael Walsh and David Newport from the
University of Limerick recently spent a few days
in Dundee familiarising themselves with the
clinical side of vascular access planning and
procedures. Michael and David also had time to
meet up with Prof Peter Stonebridge, a vascular
surgeon with NHS Tayside, and Craig Dunlop
from our commercial partner, Vascular Flow
Technologies. Amongst the topics discussed at
the meeting was the project plans for Leonard
Browne and Stephen Broderick, post doctoral
secondees from the University of Limerick, who
are about to begin a year’s secondment with
Vascular Flow Technologies here in Dundee.
Presentations
Stratos Kokkalis will present his computational
fluid dynamic work on vascular grafts and spiral
flow at the World Congress of Biomechanics in
Boston this July.
September Newsletter
• Focus on our colleagues from Birmingham:
o Mr Nick Inston
o Dr Zaib Khawaja
• Update on the ASN submissions
• Eric Lancelot and Jean-Sebastien Raynaud’s
(Guerbet) visit to Dundee.
• Secondees: Leonard Browne and Stephen
Broderick.
Some of the ReDVA group at Château de Chantilly near
Paris, France: April 2014.
This project has received funding from the European
Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research,
technological development and demonstration under
grant agreement no 324487.