Complications
Some common malfunctions of dialysis catheters include clotting, infection, and kinking. One of the most common errors of tunnel hemodialysis catheter insertions is failure to locate the arterial limb of the catheter medially and the venous limb laterally. This must be done, because most catheters have a memory in the plastic, which will cause the catheter to try to resume its natural straight form. If the arterial limb is placed laterally, this will cause the arterial inlet to float up against the vein wall, or even up against the rim of the inlet of the atrium. This has the same effect as a vacuum cleaner hose sucking up against curtains. This results in poor blood flows, and can force the dialysis staff to reverse flow, using the venous limb of the catheter as the arterial. This will result in more inefficient dialysis, as there will be admixing of blood from the catheter (cleaning the same blood, over again).
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