[Non-surgical extraction of intravascular foreign bodies in children. Experience with 8 cases].

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Foreign body retrieval in the catheter room is a useful procedure at any age, but, although its interest, few reports of such technique have been reported in children.

METHODS

We review and present our experience in 8 children, aged 5 days to 11 years, five of them having congenital hearts defects.

RESULTS

We retrieved 4 catheter fragments, 2 endocardial electrode catheter tips, 1 Rashkind 12 mm. PDA umbrella, and 1 detachable Jackson coil. All of them were placed in systemic veins, right heart chambers or pulmonary arteries. We used biplane fluoroscopy and percutaneous right femoral vein puncture in all cases. Goose-Neck (Microvena Corporation) snares were used in 5 patients, hand made snares in 2 and a Swan-Ganz catheter in one. In 4 cases, the snare was introduced trough a Mullins long sheath and the foreign body pulled into its distal end, in order to bring it out of the femoral vein. Six foreign bodies came off the femoral vein: 4 trough the puncture site and 2 needing a venous cut-down. The two remaining foreign bodies, stopped while pulling at the common iliac vein and a minor surgical procedure was needed for final extraction.

CONCLUSIONS

Therapeutic catheterization is the technique of choice for intravascular foreign body retrieval in children.