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Absolutely no, never, ever advance any external portion of any catheter that has been in contact with the skin! During the insertion procedure, the skin is cleaned with an antiseptic solution, however skin can never be made sterile. Once the catheter is stabilized and dressed, it is in contact with skin that will always be shedding skin cells and this also means that microorganisms lying deep with the epidermis will move to the skin surface. The only method for getting this catheter into the proper SVC tip location would be to do an overwire exchange. Lynn

This is based on basic anatomy and microbiology of the skin. So any A&P textbook will support. Since we know this information about the skin, it would be considered unethical to conduct a research study where catheters in contact with skin after the sterile field was broken to be reinserted. So, no, I cannot quote a specific study, but to expect this sort of study is not realistic, in my opinion. Lynn