UK team uses NHS funding to develop innovative catheter system

The project has received £1m funding from the National Health Service (NHS) to further develop the first minimally invasive procedure that uses a stent graft to form a fistula for dialysis.

More than 2.5 million people worldwide have kidney conditions that require their blood to be routinely filtered by a dialysis machine and many patients undergo a surgical procedure to prepare their veins for the filtration process. This involves a surgeon creating a connection in the arm - a fistula - between an artery and a vein, which is then connected to a dialysis machine.

Although they are the gold standard in medical care, fistulas are unreliable, often blocking up and requiring repeated costly repair operations. In the US alone, $4.6bn is spent annually to treat failing fistulas.

The market in the US, France, Germany and the UK for vascular access technologies is conservatively estimated at around $550m and $1.1bn worldwide