Subclavian central venous catheterization in infants with body weight less than 10 kg

Central venous access is an important aspect of medical treatment in intensive care units. We frequently require central venous catheterization (CVC) for total parenteral nutrition (TPN), intravenous antibiotics, multiple transfusions, and chemotherapy. The primary aim of this study is to demonstrate that percutaneous central venous catheterization in patients with body weight (BW) less than 10 kg can be conducted by the subclavian vein rather than the traditional femoral vein. Between January 1998 and December 2003, we performed 70 subclavian vein catheterizations (SVCs) in 46 patients with BW less than 10 kg in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) of a tertiary medical center. We divided patients according to their body weight into two groups, BW less than 5 kg and BW between 5 and 10 kg. We found SVC had a high total success rate, 92.9% (65/70), for the whole group. Success rate was 83.3% (15/18) for the BW less than 5 kg group and 96.2% (50/52) for the BW 5-10 kg group. In this study we found percutaneous subclavian venous catheterization in children with BW below 10 kg to be a relatively safe procedure with low risk of complication and no risk of mortality.