[Clinical experience of a subcutaneously implantable drug delivery catheter (PORT-A-CATH)]

A drug delivery catheter system with subcutaneously implantable port, PORT-A-CATH, was applied for intra-arterial, intravenous and intraperitoneal chemotherapy and hyperalimentation in treating 99 cancer patients. The average implantation period was 135.1 days and this system was applied for more than one year in 5 cases. Any troubles due to port or catheter materials were not observed during the study. Catheter occlusion occurred in 11 cases infection in 7 (catheter-related infection 4, pocket infection 3), and skin necrosis in 4. This system was proved useful to reduce the risk of infection and enabled easy and safe long-term repeated administration, compared to the catheters with external end. Intra-arterial chemotherapy became possible to the outpatients with the use of this system, which seemed to contribute for the improvement of quality of life of the patients.