Dialysis access services at Centura Transplant is an essential component of Centura Health’s medical and surgical strategy to manage all patients with chronic kidney disease. Dialysis is a treatment that provides some of the functions of the kidney that are no longer possible when the kidneys begin to fail.

There are two main forms of dialysis, hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis: 

• Hemodialysis is the treatment that removes blood from the body so it can be filtered through a machine (dialyzer) and then returned to the body. The blood is removed from and returned to the body through a vascular access. Vascular access can be a catheter, an arteriovenous fistula or arteriovenous graft.
• Peritoneal dialysis removes wastes and extra fluids by using your own body as the filter (the peritoneum). Access for this type of dialysis is with a special catheter, placed in the abdomen. Waste passes through the peritoneum, into the dialysis solution, which is then drained out of the abdomen.