• Yukiko Mori, Satoshi Nagayama, Jun-Ichiro Kawamura, Suguru Hasegawa, Eiji Tanaka, Hiroshi Okabe, Megumi Takeuchi, Makoto Sonobe, Shigemi Matsumoto, Masashi Kanai, Manabu Muto, Tsutomu Chiba, and Yoshiharu Sakai.
• Department of Clinical Oncology, Kyoto University Hospital Cancer Center, 54 Shogoin Kawahara-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8507, Japan.
• Int. J. Clin. Oncol. 2016 Jun 1; 21 (3): 474-82.

BackgroundWe have employed upper arm central venous ports (UACVPs) since 2006 for long-term intravenous chemotherapy (CTx) or fluid supplementation. We evaluated the long-term availability of CVPs implanted in the upper arm to determine whether UACVPs could be one of the treatment options besides chest CVPs in terms of CVP-related complications.MethodsWe reviewed the medical records of all patients who underwent subcutaneous implantation of UACVPs at Kyoto University Hospital from 1 April, 2006 to 30 June, 2009. We assessed the indwelling duration of the UACVPs and the incidences of early and late UACVP-related complications.ResultsA total of 433 patients underwent subcutaneous implantation of UACVPs during this time period. The cumulative follow-up period was 251,538 catheter days, and the median duration of UACVP indwelling was 439.0 days (1-2, 24). There was no UACVP-related mortality throughout the study period. A total of 83 UACVP-related complications occurred (19.2 %), including 43 cases of infection (9.9 %, 0.17/1000 catheter days), ten cases of catheter-related thrombosis (2.3 %, 0.040/1000 catheter days), ten cases of occlusion (2.3 %, 0.040/1000 catheter days), nine cases of catheter dislocation (2.0 %, 0.036/1000 catheter days), five cases of port leakage (1.2 %, 0.019/1000 catheter days), four cases of skin dehiscence (0.9 %, 0.015/1000 catheter days) and two cases of port chamber twist (0.5 %, 0.008/1000 catheter days). The removal-free one-year port availability was estimated at 87.8 %.ConclusionsUACVPs were of long-term utility, with complication rates comparable to those of chest CVPs previously reported.

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