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Karen Woo

Karen Woo

Vascular surgeon and Professor of Surgery at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, expert in dialysis vascular access and outcomes research.

Sep 17, 2026

18:19
So that'd be the first thing I'd want to hear from.
18:22
So the idea of using the multimorbidity weighted index and applying it to dialysis access patients was, first of all, we know that patients who require dialysis access have probably high multimorbidity.
18:37
We know that these patients all have lots of comorbid conditions.
18:42
And those comorbid conditions historically have been examined in the literature in isolation, right? We looked at the association of diabetes with AV access outcomes and coronary artery disease, peripheral artery disease, etc.
18:58
And all of those things have come out equivocal.
19:01
So some authors have found that there is an association, others authors have found that they aren't.
19:06
So When I met Dr. Wei and learned about the multi-morbidity weighted index, I thought that this would be a perfect opportunity to try to see if it's really about the constellation of comorbidities that affects the outcome rather than and individual comorbidity in isolation.

11 MINS LATER

30:06
Dr. Wu, the clinical side of it, even if you do end up implementing all of this and doing the heavy lifting and you can see a score, is that score going to change what you offer to a patient? Would you not offer surgery to somebody who's got high multimorbidity index?

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