The Curled Catheter: Dependable Device for Percutaneous Peritoneal Access

Abstract

The curled peritoneal dialysis catheter is theoretically less prone to catheter migration and drainage failure. It also allows percutaneous placement, rather than surgical placement exclusively, whenever desired or necessary. Review of 213 curled-catheter placements, 134 (63%) percutaneous and 79 (37%) surgical, over the last 4 years, shows that the probability of continuing catheter function by life-table analysis was 88% at one year, 71% at 2 years, and 61% at three years, with no difference comparing percutaneous to surgical placement. Among the 213 total cases, nearly 50% of all catheters were still functioning at last follow up, and 38 catheters (17.8%) have been lost in total, attributed to infectious complications in 24 cases (tunnel-exit infection alone in 5, peritonitis alone in 11, combined infection in 8), refractory drain failure in 9 cases (early drain failure in 4, late drain failure in 5), recurrent late subcutaneous dialysate leaking in 3 cases, and peri-catheter hernia in 2 cases. Among other complications, the incidence of early drain failure (7.0%), and late drain failure (4.2%), compare favorably to reports describing other devices or other placement methods having comparable size of reported experience. Analyzing our own percutaneous and surgical placements separately, there were no differences in the respective frequencies of early drain failure, late drain failure, late subcutaneous dialysate leaking, outer cuff extrusion, required hernia repair, peritonitis or tunnel-exit infection. Only early external dialysate leaking was more frequent using percutaneous placement methods (21.6% vs. 10.1%; p < 0.05), although no catheters were lost due to early external leaking. In conclusion, the present experience suggests that the curled catheter is both amenable to safe and convenient percutaneous placement methods in the majority of cases, as well as dependable for long-term peritoneal dialysis in a large university program.