Retained Central Venous Catheters
With Dr. Ian Glenn · hosted by Dr. Todd Ponsky · 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 to 15% of patients who have catheters removed require some sort of additional intervention to remove the catheter.
The actual number of catheters or catheter fragments that get left behind is 0.2 to 2%.
Risk factors for catheter retention include chemotherapy infused through the lines.
Risk factors for catheter retention include catheters that are indwelling for longer than about a year and a half.
There is an association between polyurethane catheter material and catheter retention when compared with silicone catheters.
Power ports are polyurethane catheters.
For long-term chemotherapy, a silastic line should be considered instead of a polyurethane line.
If you surgically go in for a venotomy and tug at the catheter, you run a risk of bleeding.
In interventional radiology retrieval, there is a risk of the line completely breaking and embolizing distally or of thrombosis occurring during the procedure.
Silastic lines generally have a larger size diameter for a given lumen compared to polyurethane lines.
Multiple studies of patients with retained catheter fragments followed for months to the order of 5 years found no complications.
No thrombosis associated with retained catheter fragments has been reported in follow-up studies.
No infections associated with retained catheter fragments have been reported in follow-up studies.
There has never been a report of a problem by leaving a retained catheter tip in, although long-term data are lacking.