The Toronto Western Hospital catheter in a pediatric dialysis program

Following multiple technical problems with Tenckhoff catheters in children commencing prolonged dwell peritoneal dialysis, we have recently used the Toronto Western Hospital (TWH) catheter with considerable success. Six of the TWH catheters were inserted in children who had experienced either obstruction or leakage with prior use of 1-4 Tenckhoff catheters. Overall, we have used 15 TWH catheters in 12 children and have compared the results to 23 Tenckhoff catheters in 9 children. The rate of obstruction with TWH (7%) has been much less than with the Tenckhoff catheter (45%). We conclude that the TWH catheter represents a significant advance in peritoneal dialysis catheter technology for end-stage renal disease (ESRD) children starting continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) or continuous cycling peritoneal dialysis (CCPD).