Purpose: The role totally implantable vascular devices (TIVAD) have an important role in providing care to cancer patients who require continuous or frequent venous access route either for their primary or supportive care treatments. This retrospective study aimed to analyze the efficacy of TIVAD and device-related complications.
Methods: A total of 324 consecutive patients (185 male,139 female, median age 56 years, mean 48 ± 10.91; min:16, max:87) who were implanted with TIVAD between January 2012 - May 2014 were included. We retrospectively assessed all TIVAD complications and focused on early and late complications.
Results: A total of 324 devices were implanted successfully without major complications. The overall complication rate was 33.95% )N=110). Of them, 87 (26.85%) were early and 23 (7.09%) were late complications. In total, 39 (11.23%) catheters were removed, in 8 (2.30%) patients due to complication and in 31 (9.56%) due to the end of treatment.
Conclusion: Most of the complications of TIVAD were early without requiring removal. Port catheters for chemotherapy are safe and well tolerated with acceptable complication rates.