Uneventful 25‐Year Course of an Intracardiac Intravenous Catheter Fragment in the Right Heart

Abstract

We describe a patient with an intracardiac intravenous catheter fragment in the right heart that was found during fluoroscopy. The catheter fragment had broken off from an intravenous catheter inserted 25 years previously when the patient was admitted after a road accident. There were no complications during these years. The fragment was removed during coronary bypass surgery. Other cases of intracardiac foreign bodies have been described, some causing complications even after many years. Uninfected, these can be removed easily with local interventional techniques. Removal of an infected foreign body per cardiotomy has a much higher mortality risk.

A multiinstitutional review of central venous line complications: retained intravascular fragments

“…From our experience, the catheters are well fixed to the vein wall at this time so risk of migration is very small. The long-term risk of thrombus formation is unknown but appears to be very low based on existing data from patients with retained pacemaker wires [16].…”

Percutaneous Retrieval of a Broken Catheter from the Pulmonary Artery

“…Our patient was completely asymptomatic, yet cases appear in literature of both asymptomatic cases 10,22 and others, which show various symptoms such as chest pain 13 or tachycardia (especially supraventricular tachiarrhythmias) or clinical suspicion of subacute bacterial endocarditis. 23 Available literature all agrees that the echocardiography 10,24 and the chest standard radiography 8,13,25 are effective, fast, and easy diagnostic methods. In this case, the diagnosis was made by the surgical department of a civic hospital where a standard twoprojection chest radiography was done ( Figs.…”

Port-a-cath embolisation to pulmonary artery

“…These catheter fragments most commonly embolise to pulmonary artery and this can be asymptomatic,1 as in our patient. This lack of symptoms can cause a delay in diagnosis from 10 days to 25 years 5 6. However, the embolisation can eventually cause symptoms including arrhythmias (8.1%), cough, dyspnoea, chest pain (6%) and septic complications (2%) 1.…”