A study published in The American Journal of Medicine found that peripherally inserted central catheters carry with them a potential complication of deep vein thrombosis in not only upper extremities, but lower extremities as well.
"Our study confirmed that PICCs are strongly associated with DVT in upper limbs. However, what is novel and noteworthy in this study is that the presence of a PICC was also associated with an increased risk of lower-extremity DVT," said Vineet Chopra, MD, the lead investigator and professor at the University of Michigan School of Medicine and the Michigan Hospital Medicine Safety Consortium.
Researchers studied 76,242 patients in 48 Michigan hospitals to review PICC placement, existing medical conditions, blood clot risk factors and thrombotic events within 90 days of hospitalization. Of the patients studied, 3,790 received a PICC.
Of those, there were 876 thromboembolic events, including 208 upper-extremity DVTs, 372 lower-extremity DVTs and 296 pulmonary emboli. Compared to patients who did not receive a PICC, the risk of developing a lower-extremity DVT was nearly 50 percent higher for patients who did receive a PICC.
Additionally, the researchers found that taking drugs to prevent a DVT did not reduce the risk of developing a DVT.