I am new to Hemodialysis, I transferred from PD. I work in a Canadian Hospital. When discontinuing dialysis from a Cental venous Cath. they mix saline along with heparin, according to the amt. stated on the cath. They use 5,ooou of heparin always and just adjust the saline. Now, my question is... are other places only using heparin? The nurses say that they are always having troubles with them, some of them only use heparin..would that damage the catheter? It is against hospital policy. Can you tell me what is used in other places? Thanks..

Marcie,

We use straight heparin 1,000:1 for most catheters, on the ones that tend to clot more, we use 10,000:1

Marcie,
We use 5000units/ml heparin and do not dilute with saline. We've been doing this since our unit opened three years ago and have not had any adverse effects with bleeding problems. Some of our patients still clotted their catheters, but the few who did had a history of clotting.

Marcie,
We are using 5,000U/ml in all CVC access and if the access is bad we use urokinase lock 10,000U diluted with 5000U of heparin and it works without bleeding problems.