Complicaties na het inbrengen van een Tenckhoff-catheter voor intraperitoneale toediening van chemotherapeutica

– In patients with minimal residual ovarian carcinoma after aggressive surgical and chemotherapeutic treatment nephrotoxicity andor peripheral neuropathy often prohibit continued treatment with i.v. combination cisplatin-based chemotherapy. It is attractive to continue treatment of these patients with intraperitoneally (i.p.) delivered chemotherapy. From 1981 through 1984 a Tenckhoff catheter was implanted in 59 women for i.p. chemotherapy after a staging laparoscopy or laparotomy. Minor complications occurred in 8 patients and could be treated conservatively. Ten patients suffered major complications, leading to 3 (re)laparotomies and catheter extraction in 7 of 10 patients. No patient died of complications, but mean hospitalisation-time of patients with major complications was 25 days as against 11 days for patients without complications. An analysis of 9 factors that could lead to postoperative complications failed to reveal a statistically significant risk factor. From this study no profile of a typical high-risk patient emerges.