Infusing TPN

The ONLY thing we infuse with TPN is lipids, and that is attached below the filter.

Are you in a major teaching hospital Tory?

Or a major cancer center?

Are these triple lumen central catheter intravenous lines?

In major cancer hospitals I worked in, and in some teaching hospitals, it was the same as you say.

Patients simply have so many intravenous medications....everything goes thru the TPN.

I have not seen any adverse or negative consequences .

I agree, NOTHING but lipids are to piggyback into TPN. There is too much risk of contamination/sepsis. We recently had a pt with only one central line site who was on TPN/Lipids. With the doc's written instruction, we did piggyback into the line because there was no other available access. That pt got septic, despite the most careful sterile techniques.

Maybe the patient got septic from another cause.

Only if the catheter was removed that day and cultured by lab with blood and urine cultures, can you say with even minimum certainty

that

the

i.v.

was the source of the infection.

you can have a wound infection, an infected tooth, a UTI, and become septic

AND contaminate the iv catheter with bacteremia from those sites.

tHE # 1 RANKED cancer center in the U.S. has been doing this for 25 years.

Their pts. have low white blood counts D/T immunosuppression.

I don't think they would put their patients at risk if infection were that easy.

One thing they DO NOT DO IS,.....DRAW BLOOD FROM A CENTRAL LINE.

TPN & lipids, antibiotics, iv therapy, yes , all go thru tpn line.

Thanks for the QUICK replies! And to "Passing Thru",...yes, I work at a major teaching hospital and it is the largest in our county. We have TPN most often through a PICC or it's peripheral parentral nutrition through an IV.

I'm puzzled why Passing Thru says not to draw blood thru a central line? That's the first time I've ever heard that one. Why not?

When pt's have no available peripheral sites, that is the only way to get the labs! What do you do?

I agree, WhiteCaps. In home care, we draw blood from a central line all the time.

Originally posted by WhiteCaps

I'm puzzled why Passing Thru says not to draw blood thru a central line? That's the first time I've ever heard that one. Why not?

When pt's have no available peripheral sites, that is the only way to get the labs! What do you do?

Could be the risk of infection is high so why when drawing blood, in that you open a line for infection, their policy is not to do it.

We had so many TPN labs come out of whack on one of the surgical floors that the manager made it policy that labs couldn't be drawn from a central line when a person is getting TPN or Heparin.

On our floor if there is a line, we draw from it. Stop the infusion, waste 10 cc's, then draw your blood.

Troy, our TPN's always have Pepcid mixed in it already. But our policy is not to mix piggyback anything. But I'm not sure of the rationale. Surely it's compatable with some drugs because there are some drugs mixed in with it like Insulin and Pepcid. But if you piggyback to many things that's also time the person isn't getting their formula and that needs to be calculated into the rate of flow and gets complicated. Best to have another line.