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A soft tube tunnelled under the skin into the chest, left in place so fluid that keeps building up around the lung can be drained at home, easing breathlessness without repeated hospital visits.
Long-term pleural catheters are cleared under product code DWM. Rocket Medical's indwelling pleural catheter kit (K163321, 17 August 2017) is indicated for "intermittent, long-term drainage of symptomatic, recurrent, pleural effusion, including malignant pleural effusion", for palliation of breathlessness and for achieving pleurodesis. Merit Medical's Aspira pleural drainage system (K212696, 3 March 2023) and Bearpac Medical's Passio pump drainage system (K201404, 20 November 2020) carry similar indications. In the TIME2 randomised trial (106 patients, seven UK hospitals) breathlessness improved equally over 42 days with a catheter or with talc pleurodesis, but was better with the catheter at six months (mean difference 14 mm on a 100 mm scale); first hospital stay was shorter (median 0 against 4 days) and fewer patients needed further procedures (6 against 22 per cent), while adverse events were more frequent (21 of 52 against 7 of 54). For chest drains after lung surgery or for a collapsed lung, NICE says Thopaz+, a portable digital drain, should be considered (HTG465).
A fenestrated silicone catheter is tunnelled subcutaneously into the pleural space with a cuff to anchor it and a one-way valve at the skin; patients or carers connect vacuum bottles or a pump to drain fluid every few days.
Query for this technology: (TITLE:"Indwelling pleural catheters for malignant pleural effusion" OR ABSTRACT:"Indwelling pleural catheters for malignant pleural effusion" OR TITLE:"PleurX, Rocket, Aspira, Passio" OR ABSTRACT:"PleurX, Rocket, Aspira, Passio" OR TITLE:"Indwelling pleural catheter" OR ABSTRACT:"Indwelling pleural catheter" OR TITLE:"Tunnelled pleural catheter" OR ABSTRACT:"Tunnelled pleural catheter") AND (cancer OR tumor OR tumour OR oncology OR carcinoma OR lymphoma OR leukemia OR leukaemia OR myeloma OR sarcoma OR melanoma OR glioma). Results are unfiltered search hits about Indwelling pleural catheters for malignant pleural effusion (PleurX, Rocket, Aspira, Passio), not a curated reading list.
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