How is a cancer port put in
Taking care of your port and preventing infection I Norton Cancer Institute
it's life as usual we try to keep you as
normal as possible you've got cancer
life does not stop you chemotherapy you
try and stay as close to your normal
life routine as you can the same thing
with the port accessing the port as long
as you do not have a needle in your port
its life as usual when we access your
port you're going to notice that we use
sterile gloves we do it sterile II we
have a special antiseptic cleaner it
looks like a sponge we'll squeeze it and
we'll scrub around the port site we're
gonna be scrubbing the connection site
where our syringe goes we're gonna be
scrubbing it very vigorously with
alcohol before we administer any
medications through there that's very
important as well as great hand-washing
if in you if you notice anyone not doing
that it is okay to say can you stop I
noticed you didn't scrub the hub or
clean off the port before you're
administering my medicine that puts me
at risk for infection you are your best
advocate so if you notice anything you
notice someone not washing their hands
someone not scrubbing the hub before
they administer medication to you
it is certainly okay to say I noticed
you didn't wash your hands I noticed you
didn't scrub that hub would you please
do that because I want you to help
protect me another way to help prevent
infection is once we have it accessed
we'll put a dressing on there to prevent
anything from getting around that port
site another important way to prevent
infection is minimizing the number of
times that we enter the port so we
really want to use it mainly for the
administration of your medicine when you
need labs we would prefer to use a vein
in your hand or your arm that will be
important in you know entering the port
less and helping to prevent infection
your port is a very important part of
your treatment plan it's you know one of
your lifelines so to speak ports can
because there's blood going through they
need to be flushed out to keep them open
able to flush we need to be able to draw
blood from them so we recommend that you
come in every six to eight weeks to have
the port flushed it's flushed with
saline and heparin heparin is an
anticoagulant that helps the blood from
clotting to help keep a clot from
forming around that the tip of the
catheter so it's very important to have
it flushed and quite honestly it takes
longer to get out the materials to do it
then it does actually to do the
procedure itself so you're looking at a
quick in-and-out trip to our office
sometimes when some people come in to
get their port accessed for treatment
we'll flush it and we can flush it but
we can't get blood back so it's nothing
to worry about it does happen what what
that means is sometimes there can be a
collection of blood at the tip of the
catheter or a some fibrin which forms
like a little flap so when you flush it
the flap opens and you're allowed you
know it flushes easily when you draw
back with the syringe that flap closes
and you're unable to get blood so we
take you know very important
care to get blood especially when we're
administering medications so we want to
make sure that that port is open and
readily easily give us blood so if that
ever should happen it's nothing to panic
about we have medication that we can
place in the port that will dissolve
that little collection of blood or
fibrin it takes a little time we usually
let it sit for about 45 minutes to an
hour before we check it and it dissolves
that and usually we get blood back and
it's good as new
so it's nothing to panic about
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