Cardiovascular complications in patients with end-stage renal disease.

Patients with end-stage renal disease frequently suffer from cardiovascular complications. Many factors contribute to their development: hyperkinetic circulation caused by anaemia, fluid retention and by presence of dialysis arteriovenous access; metabolic changes leading to acceleration of atherosclerosis and increase of vascular stiffness and also fluctuation of blood pressure and organ perfusion during haemodialysis, that cause repeated tissue hypoxia. We performed our research on patients in chronic haemodialysis programme. The project studying long-term patency of dialysis access showed that dialysis graft patency is negatively influenced by presence of coronary artery disease and low serum concentrations of cholesterol. In our studies about tissue hypoxia we proved that haemodialysis patients suffer from hypoxia of cerebral tissue and muscle tissue of the dialysis access arm, and that the hypoxia worsens during dialysis. Factors associated with brain hypoxia are presence of heart failure, higher BNP levels and higher erythrocyte distribution width. One of the serious consequences of brain hypoxia is development of cognitive deficit. Among the negative impact of haemodialysis on the heart, we observed left atrial dysfunction, which is a consequence of long-term remodelling and cannot be..