A Retrospective Study of Complications of Peripherally Inserted Central Venous Catheters in Oncology Patients

ABSTRACT

background and Aim: Central venous catheters can be considered as important pillars in the practice of modern-day intensivecare including oncological and onco-hematological units. However, like all medical interventions, central venous catheters tooare linked with a number of complications. The objective of the particular study had been aimed to assess the complicationslinked with peripherally inserted central catheters (PICCs) in a group of oncology patients.Materials and Methods: In this retrospective study, we included all patients carrying PICCs (n = 201) inserted at SMH cancerCentre during June 2015–May 2018 (i.e., 36 months). The major variables that were collected and analyzed have been medicalinvestigation, catheter care, placement, time span of catheterization, rationale of catheter removal, obstacles, and nursing care.Complications/obstacles were enumerated as infection, phlebitis, edema, thrombosis, ecchymosis, and/or migration.Results: The same nursing care protocol was used to treat all the patients. The rate of incidence of complications was notedto be two cases per 1000 days of catheter time span. The most pertinent complications warranting the removal of PICCs werefound to be infection and thrombosis, with an incidence of 0.17 cases per 1000 days of total catheterization duration. The averagetime period of catheterization was 170 days. In addition to common causes such as “treatment completion” (48.42%) and “death”(22.53%), the other most talked cause of catheter removal was its migration (displacement toward the exterior) of 5.90%.Conclusions: The central venous catheter (PICC) is quite a safe device that allows the administration of long-term treatment inaddition to preserving the integrity of the venous system of the patient. Adequate care of the catheter is quite crucial to preventthe occurrence of complications and improve the quality of life of the patients having oncological and hematological conditions.Thus, proper training with the latest recommendations for nursing staff as well as patients is particularly required.