Retained Central Venous Catheters
With Dr. Ian Glenn · StayCurrentMD
Educational content from recorded physician discussions — not medical advice. Talk to your (or your child's) care team about your situation.
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What the experts said
5–15% of patients who have catheters removed require some additional intervention (enlarging incision, venotomy, or interventional radiology).
0.2–2% of catheter removals result in at least part of the catheter being left behind.
Risk factors for catheter retention include chemotherapy infusion through the line, indwelling duration longer than about 1.5 years, and polyurethane catheter material compared with silicone.
Power ports are polyurethane catheters.
For long-term chemotherapy access, a silastic line should be considered instead of a polyurethane line.
Surgical venotomy to retrieve a retained catheter carries a risk of bleeding.
Endovascular retrieval by interventional radiology carries risks of the line completely breaking and embolizing distally or of thrombosis occurring during the procedure.
Silastic catheters generally have a larger outer diameter for a given lumen compared with polyurethane catheters.
Multiple studies of patients with retained catheter fragments followed for months to 5 years found no complications (no thrombosis or infections).
There has never been a report of a problem from leaving a catheter tip in, although long-term data are lacking.