Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Pediatr. Aug 8, 2017; 6(3): 149-153
Published online Aug 8, 2017. doi: 10.5409/wjcp.v6.i3.149
Confirming longline position in neonates - Survey of practice in England and Wales
Arunoday Arunoday, Christos Zipitis
Arunoday Arunoday, Department of Paediatrics, Royal Albert Edward Infirmary, Wigan WN1 2NN, United Kingdom
Christos Zipitis, the University of Manchester, Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, Wrightington Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust, Royal Albert Edward Infirmary, Wigan WN1 2NN, United Kingdom
Author contributions: Zipitis C provided the initial concept and design of the study, contributed to the analysis and interpretation of data, made critical revisions related to important intellectual content of the manuscript, and approved the final version of the article to be published; Arunoday A contributed to design of the study, data acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data, drafted the initial version of the article and was involved in critical revisions relating to important intellectual content of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This is a review of practice study and as such no IRB statement was necessary. The study was registered with the Audit Department of our Institution.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Data sharing statement: No further data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Christos Zipitis, MBChB (Hons), MPH, FRCPCH, Clinical Director of Child Health, the University of Manchester, Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, Wrightington Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust, Royal Albert Edward Infirmary, Wigan Lane, Wigan WN1 2NN, United Kingdom. christos.s.zipitis@wwl.nhs.uk
Telephone: +44-1942-822548
Received: January 13, 2017
Peer-review started: January 16, 2017
First decision: March 28, 2017
Revised: May 24, 2017
Accepted: June 7, 2017
Article in press: June 13, 2017
Published online: August 8, 2017
Core Tip

Core tip: Accurate placement of longlines is important as malposition can lead to serious complications. A number of different techniques and specialised modalities have been described in the literature. A readily available adjunct to plain radiography, shown to help avoid catheter malposition, is the use of contrast. Our survey shows that the majority of neonatal units in England and Wales are overwhelmingly reliant on plain radiographs for confirmation of longline position. Despite evidence of its usefulness and in the absence of perhaps more accurate methods of assessing longline tip position in a reliable and consistent way, e.g., ultrasonography, contrast is only used in a third of units to confirm longline position immediately after insertion of a longline.