• Intensive care medicine · Feb 2008

    Randomized Controlled Trial

    Heparinized solution vs. saline solution in the maintenance of arterial catheters: a double blind randomized clinical trial.

    • Mercedes Del Cotillo, Núria Grané, Maria Llavoré, and Salvador Quintana.
    • Hospital Mútua de Terrassa, Intensive Care Unit (ICU), Plaza Dr. Robert 5, 08221 Terrassa, Spain. mercedes7870@hotmail.com
    • Intensive Care Med. 2008 Feb 1;34(2):339-43.

    ObjectivesThe objectives were to analyze the effectiveness of heparinized solution vs. saline solution for the maintenance of arterial catheters and to detect changes in the activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) and platelet count in the samples extracted from both groups of arterial catheters.DesignRandomized, double blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial.SettingIntensive Care Unit of a third-level hospital in Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain.PatientsOne hundred and thirty-three patients were included in the trial. The selection criteria were: adults, informed consent, not receiving either full-dose anticoagulant or fibrinolytic treatment, and no thrombocytopenia.InterventionsSixty-five patients received heparinized solution (1 IU/ml) and 68 received saline solution.MeasurementsArterial catheter functionality was compared in the groups every 8 h and at catheter removal. Patency, reliability of arterial pressure, and curve quality were used to evaluate the functionality of the catheters. Blood was drawn, discarding 7.5 ml, from the arterial catheter and from the venouscatheter simultaneously for coagulation tests.ResultsThe median duration of catheters being in place was 5.1 days (IQR = 8.1) in the heparin group, and 5.4 (IQR = 7.3) in the saline group (p = 0.7). Kaplan-Meier curves showed no differences between groups (p = 0.6). The number of manipulations required to maintain the patency of the arterial catheters was 35% vs. 40% (p = 0.5). The heparin group had a significantly longer aPTT (2.1 +/- .3 vs. 1.25 +/- 0.3, p = 0.001).ConclusionsThe use of heparinized solution for arterial catheter maintenance doesnot appear to be justified. It did not increase the duration of the catheters, nor did it improve their functionality significantly. On the other hand, heparin Na altered aPTT significantly.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?

    User can't be blank.

    Content can't be blank.

    Content is too short (minimum is 15 characters).

    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…