red "hairs" on picc line after dc

[lovingRN2009]

a fellow nurse told me that after dcing a picc line their was red "hair like" matter along it. the pt arm that it had been removed from was edematous. an ultrasound was negative for thrombosis. no one at work has seen that before, just wondering if any of you have. she was getting tpn at one time and is now being treated for sepsis, the pt. is of oriental decent. thanks

[iluvivt, BSN, RN]

That sounds a bit weird!!! It sounds like it may have been some coagulated blood...How much was there? Was it just at the tip of the catheter?..That is not a s or sx of thrombosis...you can have thrombosis in the veins in the arm or in the central circulation and the s/sx are similar......swelling in the arm neck or chest wall..pronounced venous pattern in the area..usually on the chest wall.....pain or aching in the axilla arm..neck or jaw.......backtracking of fluid at the catheter insertion site...perhaps you get a lack of blood return but this is not present....things like that...you can not tell by how the catheter looks when you d/c it..