Abstract
Central venous catheters and peripherally inserted central catheters are widely used in children with serious chronic diseases. In this report, data about catheters and venous thromboembolic disease (VTE) in children will be reviewed, and the experience of a single academic children's hospital will be described. Two separate data sets that examine overlapping subpopulations will be reported: (1) the proportion of pediatric patients with catheters who develop VTE and (2) the proportion of patients referred to pediatric hematology for VTE who have catheters. The limitations of current pilot data and the authors' approach to better define this problem and its prevention are discussed.