Experience of the use of lock therapy in pediatric patients with central venous catheter

Lock therapy is useful for preserving indwelling catheters. Few lock therapy studies have been publis-hed in Latin America. Objective: To describe the clinical characteristics of pediatric patients using therapeutic and prophylactic lock therapy for six years in a high-complexity hospital in Colombia. Patients and Method: Cross-sectional descriptive study of patients aged < 18 years who received lock therapy. Collected variables included demographic data, clinical characteristics, blood test results, therapeutic interventions, frequency of admission to the pediatric critical care unit, and mortality. Descriptive analysis was performed. Results: 54 patients were included in the study, most of them males, with 67 episodes of therapeutic lock therapy use. The most frequent diagnosis was hematologi-cal neoplasm (61%). Among these patients, 88% presented neutropenia while receiving lock therapy. Catheter preservation was achieved in 75% of the cases. Aminoglycosides were the most commonly used antibiotics (38%). Mortality due to catheter-related bacteremia was 6%. Catheter preservation using ethanol solution 70% was achieved in 62% of the patients with prophylactic lock therapy, all of whom had chronic gastrointestinal pathology. Conclusion: Catheter preservation rates were 75% and 62% in patients with therapeutic and prophylactic lock therapy, respectively, with a higher rate achieved among cancer patients with neutropenia (80%). Aminoglycosides and vancomycin were the most commonly used antibiotics.