Survival Analysis of Tunneled Cuffed Central Venous Catheters in Maintenance Hemodialysis Patients: A Retrospective Study in China

AIM: The study aimed to investigate the clinical epidemiological data and the survival rate of maintenance hemodialysis patients with tunneled cuffed central venous catheters (TCCs) in a single hemodialysis center in China. METHODS: We retrospectively investigated the general clinical characteristics (including sex, age, primary causes, and catheter outcome) of 316 patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) via TCC for >3 months at Wannan Medical College Affiliated Yijishan Hospital, Wuhu, China, from July 2011 to June 2021. The long-term survival rate of the catheters was determined by Kaplan–Meier survival analyses. RESULTS: A total of 316 patients (137 males, 179 females) were included, with a mean age of 65.0 ± 15.5 years. The right internal jugular vein was the most commonly used central vein, accounting for 89.1% of catheterizations. After censoring for noncatheter-related events leading to the removal of the catheter, the mean survival time of the TCCs was 26.2 ± 19.8 smonths and the median survival time was 58.0 (95% CI, 54.0–62.0) months. Seventy patients had catheter loss-of-function events, with an incidence of 22.2%. Moreover, 97.3% of TCCs survived 1 year and 43.3% survived 5 years, respectively. The sex and age of the patients were not related to the survival rate (p > 0.05). There were also no statistical differences between the primary diseases of patients and the survival rate of TCCs (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: In this study, we provide evidence of the mean TCC survival time beyond 2 years. We found that TCC is an effective alternative for MHD patients with poor vessel status or limited survival time or become a bridge waiting for arteriovenous fistula to mature, regardless of age, sex, and primary diseases.