An arteriovenous graft or 'graft' is similar to a fistula except the artery is not connected directly to a vein. Instead, a surgeon uses short piece of plastic like tubing to connect the artery and vein together. Once the connection between the artery and vein is created the large amount of blood needed for dialysis is able to flow directly from the artery into the vein through the graft. During dialysis sessions two needles are placed into the graft, one to take blood to the dialysis machine and one to inject the cleaned, dialyzed blood back into the body.
