Table 2.

Rate difference of arteriovenous fistula events by cannulation technique

	Risk Associated with BH Compared with RLa
AVF Events	Univariate Analysis		Adjusted Analysisb
	IRR (95% CI)	P Value	IRR (95% CI)	P Value
Systemic infections	2.71 (0.66 to 11.09)	0.17	2.52 (0.63 to 10.16)	0.19
Local infections	6.13 (0.72 to 52.0)	0.09	6.27 (0.72 to 54.95)	0.10
All AVF infections	3.85 (1.66 to 12.77)	0.03	3.75 (1.10 to 12.79)	0.04
Surgical interventions (including AVF loss)	1.08 (0.33 to 3.55)	0.90	0.87 (0.26 to 2.97)	0.82

AVF, arteriovenous fistula; BH, buttonhole; RL, rope ladder; IRR, incidence rate ratio; 95% CI, 95% confidence interval.

^aStarted HHD with RL and later converted to BH.

^bThe analysis was adjusted for patient age and diabetes status using Poisson regression.