Totally percutaneous endoluminal ballooning of stuck hemodialysis catheters: One-year experience of a referral center

The stuck catheter is an uncommon but dreaded complication of dialysis line placement. It always finds the operator unaware and often requires procedure modification or reschedule. Hong pioneered the technique of endoballooning to expand a stuck central venous catheter, thus freeing it from wall adhesions. The purpose of the current study was to present a totally percutaneous variation of endoluminal stuck catheters ballooning, along with our experience in terms of safety and feasibility. A major difference presented in respect to previous techniques is that this modification does not require isolation of the distal line stump at the venous entry point by tissue dissection, thus reducing procedural time and difficulty. We presented a case series of five lines that were ballooned by navigating low-profile material directly from the cutaneous exit of the lines, with optimal results (100% success). The findings of this investigation provide additional evidence with respect to the safety and effectiveness of endoluminal ballooning of Tesio lines and offer a new variation of endoluminal ballooning which we found easy to perform, safe, and effective.