portacath inserted wrong

[nascarchris8]

Hi,

I am asking this question for my Mother-In-Law. She had a portacath inserted wrong. It had been bothering her since the time they put it in. She had one radiation treatment. Come to find out, it was put in wrong and who knows where the radiation went in her body. Is this something to be concerned with? Like I said, she received only one treatment before they figured out the problem and removed it. Can the radiation cause damage to other organs in her body? After removing it and then receiving several more radiation treatments, she developed phnemonia (sp?). Could that one treatment gone wrong have caused the phnemonia?

Thanks for any information you can give me. If you have any web links I can read more on, I would appriciate it. I have been trying to find out what I can. But, there is so much out there and nothing directly dealing with this issue.

Thanks for everything.

[armyobrn]

Radiation is not put thru a portacath. It would have nothing to do with it

[renerian, BSN, RN]

Did she get chemo through her port? Did they do radiation to her upper body?

renerian

[jemb]

I'll elaborate a bit on armyobrn's reply to your question, and add my own comments.

A portacath is placed for IV access, not radiation. People get IV fluids, IV medications, blood products, and/or chemotherapy through a portacath.

Also, portacath "inserted wrong" could mean any number of things. Was it at an angle to the chest wall that made it difficult to access? Did the catheter tip migrate into another vein after the device was inserted? (I've seen functioning portacaths become unusable due to the catheter tip 'floating'.) Who determined that it was placed wrong, and how was this determined?

You might find the following websites useful:

www.cancer.org/

www.cancerlinks.com/cancerlinks_A-Z.html

http://www.nci.nih.gov/cancerinfo/

[nascarchris8]

I did make a mistake. It was for the chemo.

Thanks for all the links. I will see if there's any info I can attain from them.

The doctor determined it was in wrong. I don't know how he determined this. I will find out more. I know she was complaning about how much it was hurting her. It was in a little over a month without being flushed out. She is also allergic to metals, they assured her it had no exposed metal in it. I think it really started hurting her after the one chemo treatment they administered through it.

Thanks you so much for all the info and links provided. I will read and find out more from her. I will post again soon. Thanks again for all the info.

Barb