Evaluation of Activity Time of Heparin Used in Port Catheter Care

Abstract

Aim: The study aims to determine the duration of the activity of the heparin, which is used in theport catheter care in the catheter. Materials and Methods: The study was carried out in a single-group pretest-posttest design. The universe of the study consisted of 56 cancer patients who applied to the outpatient chemotherapy unit of a university hospital for port catheter care between October 2019 and October 2020. During this period, 13 patients were excluded from the study and the study was completed with 43 patients. After the port catheter care was performed with heparin/saline (100IU/ml), the heparin/saline amounts in the samples aspirated through the port catheter were compared at the end of the third and sixth weeks after the port catheter care. The first heparin/saline (100IU/ml) amount prepared was accepted as the pre-test value, and the heparin/saline amounts measured at the end of the third and sixth weeks were evaluated as the post-test. The data of our study were made using the GraphPad Prism7 package program. One Way ANOVA was used to determine the differences between the groups, Dunnett's multiple comparison test was used for multiple comparisons, descriptive statistics and frequency tables were used to analyze demographic data. Results: Twenty (46.5%) of the patients were male and 23 (53.5%) were female. The mean duration of the port catheter use is 4.62±2.69 years. The 35.3% of the individuals with chronic disease had hypertension (n=6), 35.3% (n=6) had diabetes mellitus, and 20.9% (n=9) of patients uses anticoagulant medication. After the port catheter care, heparin concentrations (mean: 55.72 IU/ml) did not decrease significantly in the third week, while heparin concentrations (mean: 39.75 IU/ml) in the sixth week showed a significant decrease. Conclusion: It can be suggested that the effectiveness of heparin used in venous port catheter care continues at the end of the sixth week and it is appropriate to perform port maintenance every six weeks. © 2022, Turk Nefroloji Diyaliz ve Transplantasyon Hemsireleri Dernegi. All rights reserved.