Long-term venous catheters are used for the total parenteral nutrition infusion, which is essential for feeding short-bowel syndrome patients. However, complications are likely to occur. The incidence of catheter related infections ranges from 3 to 20% in hospitalized patients. The Divisão de Nutrição Clínica do Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo, Brazil, has been providing nutrition support to short-bowel syndrome patients, using totally implantable venous catheters. This is a retrospective study, which aims to show the Divisão de Nutrição Clínica experience with such catheters, and to discuss the incidence of infections. We retrospectively evaluated infection complications in 21 catheters implanted in 16 patients. The permanence-time of the catheters was 768±664.3 days (median: 529 days). The incidence of infection was 0.029 per patient, per year. These results are comparable to data from developed countries. Considering that the patients here studied were imunossupressed due to intestinal mal-absorption, our findings suggest that the catheter care, as provided by our team, contributed to diminish the rate of infections, and to increase the utilization period of each catheter.
catheters; parenteral nutrition; sepsis
