Case 152: Oncology patient
You are asked to take blood from this patient but cannot find a suitable vein for venepuncture. You notice a scar on the anterior chest wall and an unusual finding in the lower neck.
1. What have you found?
A buried subcutaneous infusion port for vascular access. Usually used for chemotherapy. Sometimes known as an infusaport.2. What problems do these devices have?
Insertion: bleeding, pneumothorax, failure, difficult to feed into central vein, arrhythmiaMedium term: infection, sepsis, blockage, thrombosis, pulmonary embolus, port volvulus and inability to needle port, extravisation of chemo and resulting skin necrosis.
Removal: bleeding, breakage of catheter and foreign body pulmonary embolus, air embolus, seroma, infection.
See a similar case: Case 111
PubMed - Longterm central venous access in gynecologic cancer patients.