Catheter Breakage after Surgery

[FlyingCoo]

Ok Peeps bare with me on this one!!

Cut a long story short pony had colic surgery in the wee small hours 3 days ago and all went well and so far so good at this stage. Mostly, thanks to my Vet who said Vet School straight away and no hanging about!

However, the next problem facing us is that post surgery the end of the catheter broke off and did hang around between the vein and tissue for a while.

Therefore, we tried to remove it standing up as felt another general anaesthetic was too much to ask after the colic surgery. So anyway the broken catheter decided to float off somewhere round the circulation system which of course needs to pass through the heart and lungs without incident and without infection.

So my point is has anyone else come across this and if so what happened???

Vet school has only come across it once in a lot of years and doing research and speaking to other vets the majority of people have only "heard" of it happening once or twice and if can keep infection at bay then we should just have a pony left with a bit of catheter hanging about!?

Anyway anything good or bad is appreciated as trust me to be have the "speshul" case!!

 

[flintfootfilly]

Sorry, I have absolutely no idea of the prognosis, but I hope they are able to find and remove it, and that your pony makes a good recovery.

I've just looked in a book I bought recently when I needed to swot up on colic surgery when one of my ponies had surgery. Anyway, in "Manual of Gastroenterology" by Mair, Divers and Ducharme there are a few references to catheters breaking:

"On a rare occasion the catheter may break into the vein. If the broken catheter can be trapped in the jugular vein, it should be surgically removed. If the broken catheter passes into the lung, as determined by radiographs, it should be left alone where, based upon a limited number of cases, it does not appear to cause a problem. IF the catheter is lodged in the heart it must be removed".

It also says that all commercial catheters are radio-opaque, so this means that it may be looked for by using Xrays....... ( I guess, assuming that it's gone to a part of the body where it's possible to Xray).

Some types of catheter are apparently more likely to break than others, especially if the catheter has kinked at the skin-vein junction. It mentions that teflon catheters are stiffer and therefore more likely to kink than other types.

Teflon ones are easier to place, so tend to be used when their use is urgent and/or there is anticipated to be difficulty placing the catheter. Polyurethane catheters are most commonly used for horses in intensive care.

That's all that I can find of any relevance. Hope all goes well.

Sarah

 

[FlyingCoo]

Sorry, I have absolutely no idea of the prognosis, but I hope they are able to find and remove it, and that your pony makes a good recovery.

I've just looked in a book I bought recently when I needed to swot up on colic surgery when one of my ponies had surgery. Anyway, in "Manual of Gastroenterology" by Mair, Divers and Ducharme there are a few references to catheters breaking:

"On a rare occasion the catheter may break into the vein. If the broken catheter can be trapped in the jugular vein, it should be surgically removed. If the broken catheter passes into the lung, as determined by radiographs, it should be left alone where, based upon a limited number of cases, it does not appear to cause a problem. IF the catheter is lodged in the heart it must be removed".


Sarah

Sarah thank you soooo much this is the thing I was looking for. We are at the stage now that it has broken into the vein and gone off into the circulatory system as tried to remove it but couldn't get it. His heart is due to be scanned to ensure it has passed his heart. I was told that if it passes into the lungs and remains there and causes no infection then that is all good! Fingers crossed its passes the heart as not sure open heart surgery is that well advanced in horses!