Efficacy and safety of peripherally inserted central catheters in patients receiving chemotherapy

Background: On receiving chemotherapy, extravasation of drugs is a severe problem. The extravasations occur more commonly in patients who are elderly, have a poor performance status, have diabetes mellitus complications or have repeatedly received chemotherapy. Also, cancer patients usually require repeated venous punctures for this treatment. Purpose and methods: For the purpose of evaluating the efficacy and safety of peripherally inserted central catheters (PICCs) for intravenous chemotherapy, we retrospectively reviewed all the cancer patients for whom PICC were inserted for chemotherapy from April 2008 to December 2010. Patients' background, duration of PICC insertion and complications were evaluated in this study. Results: Ten patients (male 4, female 6) were reviewed in this study. The median age was 59 years (17∼69). A total of 13 PICCs were inserted in 10 patients. The most common underlying disease was abdominal rhabdomyosarcoma (n=3, 30%) followed by lung cancer (n=2, 20%) and hematologic tumor (n=2, 20%). The average catheter span was 46 days. Catheter-related infections were seen in 2 cases (15.4%). No phlebitis or thrombosis usually associated with venous route was detected in PICC used for chemotherapy. Conclusions: PICC might reduce patients' discomfort such as repeated venous punctures or complications associated with chemotherapy. We suggest that PICC would be one of the effective tools in chemotherapy. Palliat Care Res 2011; 6(2): 233-236