Novel Design of Peripheral Infusion Catheter Improves the Kinetics of Intravenous Drug Release.

Short peripheral catheters are ubiquitous in today's healthcare environment, enabling effective and direct delivery of fluids and medications intravenously. A commonly associated complication of their use is thrombophlebitis-thrombus formation-involved inflammation of the vein wall. A novel design of a very short peripheral catheter showed promising results in a pig model in reducing the mechanical irritation to the vein wall. Here, the kinetics of drug release through the novel catheter was compared to a standard commercial catheter using experimental and computational models. In a good agreement, in vitro and in silico models reveal the superiority of the novel catheter design with faster washout time, favorable spatial distribution within the vein, and substantially lower wall shear stress. We submit therefore that the novel design has an improved drug removal profile compared to the conventional catheter and can potentially reduce chemical irritation to the vein wall and minimize the risk for thrombophlebitis. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Short peripheral catheters are ubiquitous in today's healthcare environment, allowing effective and direct delivery of fluids and medications intravenously. It is well known, however, that prolonged exposure to an irritant drug may lead to its absorption in the endothelial layer lining the vein wall, promoting among other, thrombophlebitis that may lead to increased morbidity, delayed treatment, and prolonged hospitalization. There have been multiple calls to consider low infusion rates with various infusion protocols and to place the catheter tip as central as possible to promote faster drug clearance and reduce the potential vessel damage, but the requisite device had not been available, and the short peripheral catheter is still, and for decades, the standard of care. Towards this end, we recently introduced a novel very short peripheral catheter design, and here, we demonstrate using experimental and computational models its favorable spatial and temporal drug-releasing profiles compared with the standard catheter. The clinically potential relevance is underscore both by the more efficient perfusion of IV drugs and lower irritation to the vein wall at the site of injection. Graphical abstract.