BACKGROUND:The objective of this study was to determine whether severe neutropenia on the day of port-a-catheter (PORT) insertion was a risk factor for catheter-associated infection (CAI) in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). METHODS: This was a retrospective study of children with ALL who had a PORT insertion between January 2005 and August 2008. Early ( 30 days) and late (>30 days) postprocedure complications were reviewed. The length of follow-up ranged between 7 months and 42 months. RESULTS: In total, 192 PORTs were inserted in 179 children. There were 43 CAIs (22%), and the infection rate was 0.35 per 1000 catheter-days. The CAI rate (15%) in children who had severe neutropenia on the day of the procedure did not differ statistically from the CAI rate (24%) in children who did not have severe neutropenia (P ¼ .137). Conversely, patients with severe neutropenia who had a CAI were more likely to have their PORT removed (P ¼ .019). The most common organisms to cause catheter removal were coagulase-negative Staphylococcus and Staphylococcus aureus. Patients with high-risk ALL had a statistically significant higher incidence of late CAI than patients with standard-risk ALL (P ¼ .012). Age (P ¼ .272), positive blood culture preprocedure (P ¼ 1.0), and dexamethasone use (P ¼ .201) were not risk factors for CAI. Patients who had an early CAI did not have a greater chance of having a late CAI. The catheter infection-free survival rate at 1 year was 88.6%. CONCLUSIONS: The current results indicated that severe neutropenia on the day of PORT insertion does not increase the risk of CAI in children with ALL. Cancer 2010;116:4368-75.