Catheter fracture and embolization from an implanted venous access device

Abstract

A 76-year-old man complained of shoulder pain and erythematous swelling over the left infraclavicular region after 0.9% saline solution injection during an outpatient visit. The patient had a case of sigmoid cancer with multiple liver metastases. He had received sigmoid colectomy with colorectostomy 6 months prior. During the same hospitalization an implantable vascular access port (Arrow International, Reading, PA, USA) was implanted in the left subclavian vein using the Seldinger technique with a peel-away introducer kit, because the cephalic vein was too small to cannulate.