[An atraumatic needle for the puncture of ports and pumps]

Huber-point needles have been found to induce substantial coring during puncture of ports or pumps, which may lead to leakage or obturation of these devices. Therefore, different types of cannulas were tested in order to evaluate their applicability for this purpose. Pencil-point needles led to increased pain during puncture and thus seemed unsuitable. A newly developed port-cannula bent inwards within the length of the bevel ("protected bevel") and proved to be definitely noncoring during electron microscopy. Consequently the force required to introduce this needle was reduced by 50% in comparison with the Huber-type needle. In addition, this cannula allowed up to 3000 punctures of one port without leakage and, thus, correspondingly therefore relevantly increased the durability of this device.