Colchicine And Dialysis Patients; a Feasibility Study

Colchicine is an inexpensive drug that has been available for decades. Trials, which excluded patients with kidney disease, showed that colchicine decreased the number of heart attacks and strokes. The investigators cannot be sure if these results will apply to dialysis patients and a clinical trial exploring the effect of colchicine on heart attacks and strokes specifically in dialysis patients is needed. Colchicine may also be beneficial for dialysis patients as it may help arteriovenous fistulas to last longer. An arteriovenous fistula is a connection made between an artery and a vein in the arm, allowing for access to a person's bloodstream as part of dialysis. Sometimes, these connections can get too narrow in some parts, stopping them from working properly. These narrowings can be treated with a balloon inserted into the vein with the help of an x-ray. Balloons coated with a drug called paclitaxel, which works like colchicine, can be helpful, so the investigators think colchicine may help too.

At present, colchicine is often avoided in patients receiving dialysis. Patients on haemodialysis take a number of medications already and have significant comorbidity. Therefore, it is possible that a higher proportion would have difficulty tolerating colchicine. These concerns mean that a large trial assessing the potential benefits of colchicine in this population cannot begin without further data on feasibility.

This feasibility study will establish whether low dose colchicine is tolerated and acceptable to dialysis patients and will help the investigators to plan recruitment to future clinical trials. The investigators will give colchicine to 100 dialysis patients. The investigators will monitor the participants for side effects and see how many continue to take it for the planned period of 3 months. If feasibility is confirmed, there are then strong rationales for large clinical trials exploring the effect of colchicine on both mortality and vascular access outcomes in dialysis patients.