What's the difference between a port and a central line?!
Question: When used for chemo
Answers: When used for chemo
Well, a port is a type of central line.
The term "central line" is used to describe a catheter (small tube) usually placed in the chest that goes into the heart to deliever medications and make it easier for blood draws.
A Port-A-Cath is a small metal or plastic "button" like thing with a silicone top. It is placed under the skin on the chest and a tube is connected to it and t goes into your heart. All parts of a port-a-cath are under the skin and all you can see is a bump on the persons chest. The pros to a port-a-cath are..you can take baths. The cons..you still get needle pokes.
A Hickman or a Broviac are types of central lines with the catheter on the outside of the body. It is put in the same place as a portacath but is only a tube and it dangles down the persons chest. So, you can see it.They are usually white and some have more than one opening (lumen). The pros.. no needle pokes. The cons...no baths, and they can get infected more easily.
Basically, they are usually put in when a person is about to undergo lots of medical crap, so you dont have to get lots of IVs and your veins dont collapse.
I hope this helps.
A central line is a tube out of your chest hooked up to a vein. They inject drugs into the tube = no more needles for IV's. Stays in place until you're done with drugs. Advantage: no more hunting for veins. Disadvantage: prone to infection, small surgery to have it put in
A port is under the skin, and the IV gets put into the port through the skin each time (and taken out at the end of the session). Advantage: when you're not having drugs, you don't have a tube hanging around. Unlikely to get infected. Disadvantage: small surgery to have it put in, a needle for each IV, but not into a vein, so less tricky
You might be able to have chemo without either a port or a central line. Hubby had all his done via regular IV. Didn't want a central line for a number of reasons, and would still have had to stay in hospital with a port, so went for venuous IV. His veins were wrecked by the end of the chemo...looked like a chronic drug addict, but recovered nicely :-)
Good luck!