A comparative study of two dressings for central venous catheters
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Skin reactions – a comparative pilot study looking at skin reactions to two commonly used dressings in the care of Hickman® lines.
IRAS ID
141955
Contact name
Christine Norton
Contact email
Research summary
The use of a central venous catheter (CVC) enables intravenous administration of complex drug regimes, blood products and nutritional support whilst removing the requirement of repeated venepunctures and therefore potential discomfort to patients. A CVC is a catheter inserted to a large central vein that can be kept in situ for long periods of time. Skin tunnelled central venous catheters, are vital in ensuring appropriate access is gained to administer the treatment haematological malignancies. Patients undergoing a stem cell transplant will have a central venous catheter device inserted at some stage in their treatment pathway. Whilst catheters are of great benefit for the patient they represent a potential source of infection and this risk is greater for patients receiving high dose chemotherapy as their immune system will be supressed.
The standard dressing for a skin tunnelled CVC in our NHS Trust is Tegaderm® (a semi permeable polyurethane dressing). However, haematology nurses have observed that the haematology patients are prone to skin reaction to this dressing and currently use Mepore ® (a dry gauze and tape based dressing). To determine which gives the least skin reactions when used to cover exit sites of skinned tunnelled central venous catheters (Hickman® lines) in patients receiving high dose chemotherapy with or without total body irradiation and stem cell transplantation, this randomised comparative pilot study will compare Mepore® and Tegaderm®. Due to the limited annual number of patients receiving this type of treatment, this research will recruit 25 -50 patients in a 5 month period. The patients will be randomised and be in-patients on three haematology wards within one acute NHS Trust.
SPSS software will be used to carry out the statistical analysis. The findings will be reported to the Vascular Access group and published in relevant journals.REC name
North West - Liverpool Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/NW/0030
Date of REC Opinion
23 Jan 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion