Percutaneous Insertion of Central Venous Catheters
1 Department of Neonatal Pediatrics, Grace Maternity Hospital, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 1W3
To the Editor.
We have also used the percutaneous technique for insertion of Silastic catheters in neonates as described by Dolcourt and Bose1 and have seen results similar to theirs. From July 1981 to July 1982 we used this technique successfully on 18 occasions in 14 infants with two failed attempts. All infants except one weighed <1,400 g at the time of insertion. Although the catheters were often removed because sepsis was suspected clinically, there were in fact two episodes of documented septicemia both due to Staphylococcus albus in infants receiving total parenteral nutrition.




