• Patricia Volkow, Carolina Vázquez, Odilia Téllez, Catalina Aguilar, Laura Barrera, Eneida Rodrgíuez, Diana Vilar-Compte, Juan Zinser, Ernesto Calderón, José Rogelio Pérez-Padilla, and Alejandro Mohar.
• Instituto Nacional de Cancerologa, México.
• Am J Infect Control. 2003 Nov 1; 31 (7): 392-6.

BackgroundSilicone has been the standard material for indwelling devices to date. Polyurethane II exhibits properties that makes it suitable as a component of long-indwelling vascular access, with the added advantage of low cost.ObjectiveTo describe the experience of an intravenous therapy team with 206 polyurethane II catheters used as long-indwelling vascular access in patients with cancer.Materials And MethodsAll polyurethane II single- and double-lumen catheters implanted between January 1, 1994, and March 15, 1995, were analyzed, including time of stay and type and rate of infectious and noninfectious complications.ResultsA total of 206 catheters were placed--164 single-lumen and 42 double-lumen catheters--in 190 patients; average stay was 101 days (range, 1-445 days). The infection incidence rate was 0.66 per 1000 catheter-days for single-lumen catheters and 1.6 per 1000 catheter-days for double-lumen catheters. Noninfectious complications included 1 thrombosis (incidence rate, 0.06 per 1000 catheter-days for single-lumen and none for double-lumen catheters), 5 catheter ruptures (2.4%), and 1 pneumothorax (0.48%). Twelve catheters (8.3%) were removed because of complications; only 1 was infectious. The remaining 17 infectious episodes (94.4%) were resolved without catheter removal. Our complication rate with single-lumen catheters in this series was similar to our previous experience with a nontunneled silicone catheter.ConclusionsOur findings indicate that polyurethane II catheters have proven useful and safe as long-indwelling vascular access in patients with cancer at our hospital at a considerably lower cost.

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