medicine through art. line

[JazzyNursie87]

Hi everyone,

I'm doing this Essentials of Critical Care Orientation through AACN. I'm orienting to the MCICU, and I was reading up on arterial catheters which we use very often. This may seem like a crazy question, but does anyone know what would happen if medicine were inadvertantly given through an arterial line? The lesson that I'm reading just says not to do it...but doesn't tell me why? I'm guessing that the medicine could go to parts of the body where it didn't need to be before being metabolized...since arteries take blood away from the heart? I've looked for an answer but can't find one. Does anyone know? Thanks!! :wink2:

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

You're on the right track. Blood flow in arteries is away from the heart; if your art line is a radial one, the blood flow is toward the thumb and the palm of the hand. If you put a drug into that art line it will go to the thumb and the palm of the hand where it will cause untold tissue damage before it passes through the capillary bed into the venous system. One scenario that I've seen is that a new grad nurse in our ICU was infusing D10W into her patient's art line in error. She was also drawing all her labs form this art line. You can guess what happened... the baby's serum glucose was shig, so they started insulin. The glucose didn't come down so they increased the insulin. When the mistake was finally caught, the baby's serum glucose was so low it was almost immeasurable. Fortunately the baby recovered. And that's why you don't infuse meds through an art line.

[Reno1978, BSN, RN]

Irreparable damage can be caused by infusing medicine through an arterial line. I've never witnessed it, but I had a patient once who lost her thumb and index finger due to necrosis after a nurse administered an IV med through her arterial line during one of her prior hospital stays.

Where I work now, we set up art lines on the vamp system so there are no luer-lock connections besides the cap you unscrew to zero your line. I would think it would cut down on inadvertently administering medication through arterial lines.

[JazzyNursie87]

Thanks

[iluvivt, BSN, RN]

Also it is much easier to live with a damaged vein than a damaged artery. Many medications can and will sclerose the artery and since arteries bring the oxygenated blood to the tissues.this is what would be compromised should an artery be damaged.