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Port Placement

What is Port Placement?

Healthy Life

While not for any specific form of cancer treatment, ECCO also places ports for patients that need long term chemotherapy (defined as more than one month of treatments). Ports are implanted IVs through which chemo can be administered, labs can be drawn and dye for imaging studies can be injected.

How is Port Placement treated?

A port is an implanted IV access that is typically used for chemotherapy administration. Ports are usually placed under the skin of the upper right chest where they can stay in place for several years, or a few months – depending on the needs of the patient.

With the patient on their back on an X-ray table, and after a local anesthetic is applied, using ultrasound guidance the right internal jugular vein (typically) is accessed with a needle. A wire is then passed through the needle into the vein and using X-ray guidance, the wire is guided into a safe position.  Next, an incision is made in the upper chest, a subcutaneous pocket is created and the port is positioned within the pocket. The catheter connected to the port is then tunneled underneath the skin to the vein access site, where it is then inserted into the vein under X-ray guidance.

Once the catheter is in position, the port is ready to use right away. The incision is closed with absorbable stitches and covered with skin glue

This is a minimally-invasive procedure which takes about 15-minutes, done with or without sedation at our facility. Recovery time is minimal.

ECCO Medical located in Denver, Colorado will help you enjoy life again through its minimally invasive procedures to treat liver cancer