Nurse-led Placement of Peripheral Venous Catheters in Overweight Patients Using Standard or Dynamic Ultrasound-guided Technique

Overview

Overweight and obesity may be associated with difficult intravenous access leading to longer procedure time and more placement attempts of peripheral venous catheters (PVC). Dynamic ultrasound-guided short-axis needle tip navigation (DUST) may facilitate the procedure. This was a prospective, randomized, non-blinded study to compare time and placement attempts for nurse-led standard (ST) and ultrasound guided PVC placement in 90 emergency patients with a BMI ≥25kg/m2. Consenting patients were randomized at a 1:1 ratio to receive PVC by either ST or DUST. Application time was defined as the time from applying stasis to visible blood in the PVC flash-chamber. No difference in time was found (medians: ST 42 s; DUST 53.5 s, P = 0.535). There were on average 17 % less placement attempts in the DUST-group (median 1 attempt; Q1 = 1 Q3 = 1) compared to the ST-group (median 1 attempt; Q1 = 1 Q3 = 1.5), (p = 0.031). Patients reported no differences in perceived pain (p = 0.955) or perceived satisfaction (p = 0.342). Pain and subcutaneous infiltrations were the only side-effects reported (ST-group 6, DUST-group 5). DUST does not decrease time to functional PVC but reduces the number of PVC placement attempts in patients with BMI ≥25 kg/m2.

Conditions