Causes, Complications, and Costs Associated with External Ventricular Drainage Catheter Obstruction.

Ventricular catheter obstructions in patients treated with external ventricular drains (EVDs) have the potential to substantially impact the cost of patient care. There is a paucity of literature that directly addresses catheter obstruction over large numbers of patients with EVDs in multiple centers. Contemporary literature was reviewed to characterize causes, complications, and costs of EVD catheter obstruction.

Ventricular catheter development: past, present, and future.

Cerebrospinal fluid diversion via ventricular shunting is the prevailing contemporary treatment for hydrocephalus. The CSF shunt appeared in its current form in the 1950s, and modern CSF shunts are the result of 6 decades of significant progress in neurosurgery and biomedical engineering. However, despite revolutionary advances in material science, computational design optimization, manufacturing, and sensors, the ventricular catheter (VC) component of CSF shunts today remains largely unchanged in its functionality and capabilities from its original design, even though VC obstruction remains a primary cause of shunt failure.