A 45-year-old woman, with a history of breast cancer in the left breast, returned to her physician. Unfortunately the disease had spread to the axillary lymph nodes and bones (bony metastatic disease). A surgeon duly resected the primary breast tumor with a wide local excision and then performed an axillary nodal clearance. The patient was then referred to an oncologist for chemotherapy. Chemotherapy was delivered through a portacath, which is a subcutaneous reservoir from which a small catheter passes under the skin into the internal jugular vein. The patient duly underwent a portacath insertion without complication, completed her course of chemotherapy, and is currently doing well 5 years later.
The portacath was placed on the patient’s right anterior chest wall and the line was placed into the right internal jugular vein. The left internal jugular vein and subcutaneous tissues were not used. The reason for not using this site was that the patient had previously undergone an axillary dissection on the left, and the lymph nodes and lymphatics were removed. Placement of a portacath in this region may produce an inflammatory response and may even get infected. Unfortunately, because there are no lymphatics to drain away infected material and to remove bacteria, severe sepsis and life-threatening infection may ensue.
How was it placed?
The ultrasound shows an axial image across the root of the neck on the right demonstrating the right common carotid artery and the right internal jugular vein. The internal jugular vein is the larger of the two structures and generally demonstrates normal respiratory variation, compressibility, and a size dependence upon the patient’s position (when the patient is placed in the head-down position, the vein fills and makes puncture easy).
The risks of the procedure
As with all procedures and operations there is always a small risk of complication. These risks are always balanced against the potential benefits of the procedure. Placing the needle into the internal jugular vein can be performed under ultrasound guidance, which reduces the risk of puncturing the common carotid artery. Furthermore, by puncturing under direct vision it is less likely that the operator will hit the lung apex and pierce the superior pleural fascia, which may produce a pneumothorax.
The position of the indwelling catheter
The catheter is placed through the right internal jugular vein and into the right brachiocephalic vein. The tip of the catheter is then placed more inferiorly at the junction of the right atrium and the superior vena cava. The reason for placing the catheter in such a position relates to the agents that are infused. Most chemotherapeutic agents are severely cytotoxic (kill cells), and enabling good mixing with the blood prevents thrombosis and vein wall irritation.
A 15-year-old girl presented to the emergency department with a 1-week history of productive cough with copious purulent sputum, increasing shortness of breath, fatigue, fever around 38.5° C, and no response to oral amoxicillin prescribed to her by a family physician. The patient was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis shortly after birth and had multiple admissions to the hospital for pulmonary and gastrointestinal manifestations of the disease.
Physical examination on the current admission to the ER revealed widespread inspiratory crackles, mild tachycardia of 105/min, and fever of 38.2° C. Diagnosis of infective exacerbation of bronchiectasis was made. Sputum was sent for microbiology, which later came back positive for Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a common pathogen isolated in such patients.