Management of Infected Infusaports

[Gerald Cha]

Dear all,
I’m really interested in gathering more info and the overall feel regarding the management of infected infusaports in other hospitals.
Understandably, from an IC/ID perspective, the obvious recommendation would be to promptly remove the infected line and treat with the relevant ABs accordingly.
However, I note that some Oncologists have a different take on this as their focus is on preserving the lines where possible, ensuring that there’s minimal interruption with the patient’s chemo treatment e.g. 5FU CADD pump (thus allowing for superficially infected infusaports to be considered an acceptable risk from their perspective).
Given time, these superficially infected lines then pose a very high risk to bacteraemia acquisitions in this high risk patient group.
Has anyone got guidelines/policies in this area that they’re willing to share?
Also keen to hear from all with regards to skin erosions at the infusaport sites… does this occur often in your areas and do your Onc teams advocate immediate removal or has there been attempts to prolong its use? If so, how?
My thanks in advance.
Regards,
Gerald

Gerald Chan
Coordinator Infection Control

St John of God Murdoch Hospital
100 Murdoch Drive
MURDOCH. WA 6150

P: 9366 1552
M: 0405 495 906 (7804)
F: 9311 4685
E: Gerald.Chan@sjog.org.au
W: http://www.sjog.org.au/murdoch

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