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COMMENTARY |
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Year : 2014 | Volume
: 7
| Issue : 6 | Page : 796-797 |
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Hepatic necrosis due to umbilical vein catheter malposition
Satish Naware
Department of Radiology, MGM Medical College, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Date of Web Publication | 18-Nov-2014 |
Correspondence Address: Satish Naware Department of Radiology, MGM Medical College, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra India
Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None | Check |
How to cite this article: Naware S. Hepatic necrosis due to umbilical vein catheter malposition. Med J DY Patil Univ 2014;7:796-7 |
Ever since the human race started evolving and thrived under different civilizations in different parts of the world, human life has always been held to be precious. In fact, a doctor's supreme duty is to conserve human life by sustaining and reviving it under adverse conditions. Moreover in order to achieve that goal our predecessors resorted to heroic acts and bold experiments. They not only experimented on animals, human volunteers but even on themselves.
After the masterly description of human circulatory system by William Harvey, there was a surfeit of attempts to enter and explore the system. There were several types of tubes made of varied material and different portals were interrogated to gain entry into the vascular channels. Among numerous such doctor scientists the names that stand out are Sir Christopher Wren, Werner Forssmann, Andre Cournand, Dickinson Richards, Meyers, Zimmerman and Seldinger.
As with the growth of every other branch of science, the medical field also gained enormously by the inventions and discoveries in the fields of materials/chemicals/biotechnology/cybernetics. Minification, safety and ease of use have been the greatest boon for developing devices for entry into body's vascular tree. These devices cannot only be introduced, but also can be left indwelling for significant length of time.
Venous access to human circulation is probably the most used portal for multiple purposes, be it, alimentation, chemotherapy, drugs delivery and interventional lodging devices. The common sites of entry include jugular vein, subclavian vein, peripheral vein and in cases of new-born the Umbilical vein. The primary advantage of such placements is avoidance of repeated trauma to patients.
In view of these rapid and large scale advancements, it has now become more and more demanding on treating physicians not only to be abreast with the latest, but also be justified in patient selection, modality selection, and treatment option selection. There is a need to lay down standard operating procedures, norms of normalcy and follow-up/evaluation protocols. Being aware of potential complications, timely search for them and early aggressive management of them is the cornerstone of modern day medical practice.
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