Subcutaneous venous port implantation in adult patients: a single center experience

To present the midterm follow-up results of subcutaneous venous chest ports in adult patients.

Between January 2001 and November 2005, 476 subcutaneous venous chest ports were placed in 472 adult patients. Five patients underwent port implantation twice. All the ports had single lumen catheters. The procedures were performed under intravenous sedation as well as local anesthesia. All ports were placed on the anterior chest wall, except one, which was placed on the trapezius muscle.

The technical success rate was 99.8%. The procedure- related minor complication rate was 0.63% (total: 3 cases; 1 hematoma during local anesthesia application, and 2 early hematomas) and there were no major complications. Mean duration of catheter usage was 376 days (total: 178,997 catheter days; range: 2 to 1522 catheter days). Late complications occurred at a rate of 10.7% (51 cases). Among those 51 cases, 36 (7.6%) developed minor complications in which port removal was not needed; however, 15 ports (3.15%) had to be removed due to major complications. Seven ports (1.47%) were explanted due to treatment-resistant bacteremia and sepsis, in addition to 2 other ports (0.42%) because of port pocket infections. An additional 6 ports (1.26%) required explantation for the following reasons: skin necrosis (0.21%); incision dehiscence (0.21%); broken or torn catheter (0.42%); jugular vein thrombosis (0.21%); thrombosis of superior caval vein (0.21%).

Radiological implantation of subcutaneous venous ports can be performed with similar or lower complication rates as compared to the surgical literature, due to the obvious advantage of imaging guidance. Hence, we think that port implantation with imaging guidance will become the preferred implantation method in the future.