VENOGRAPHIC SURVEILLANCE OF TUNNELED VENOUS ACCESS DEVICES IN ADULT ONCOLOGY PATIENTS

Background: Tunneled venous access devices (VADs) are often essential in the care of patients with advanced malignancies, but they carry an uncertain risk of thrombosis. Methods: To determine the incidence of v enoocclusion related to silicone VADs in a population of adult oncolog y patients, we prospectively studied 50 individuals with upper extremi ty venograms similar to 6 weeks after their VADs had been implanted. T wenty-one of these patients were reevaluated with venograms similar to 12 weeks after catheterization. In addition, venograms were performed on a separate group of 24 patients who needed catheterization of axil lary-subclavian veins that had been catheterized in the past. Results: The 6-week venograms in the prospective study showed partial venous o bstruction in 15 patients (30%), whereas three (6%) had developed symp tomatic total venoocclusion by this time. The 12-week venograms showed two additional complete occlusions, Venograms of 30 previously cathet erized veins showed complete venoocclusion in nine (30%), although onl y two had a history of thrombosis. Conclusions: Our observations indic ate that VADs frequently cause partial venoocclusion within the first 6 weeks of catheterization and that permanent venous damage from VADs is common, even without a history of VAD-related thrombosis.