Management of Extravasation Injury in Infants: A Systematic Review of Clinical Trials

Context: One of the common procedures in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is the insertion of a venous catheter, and one of the most important and serious complications is extravasation, which is a leading cause of death in hospitalized infants. Based on the researcher’s experience in the NICU and the necessity of extravasation injury management in infants, this review study focused on extravasation injury management in infants. Methods: The literature was searched in ProQuest, Scopus, and PubMed databases using the terms “extravasation” OR “vascular leakage” OR “Peripheral Infiltration” AND “Neonatal” OR “Newborn” OR “Infants” OR “NICU.” The search procedure was performed in the title, abstract, and full text of articles published in English from 2000 to 2022. Results: In the initial search, 3414 articles were extracted. After removing the duplicates and searching the titles and abstracts of the articles, 132 related articles were found, and their full texts were studied. Finally, 20 articles entered the final analysis stage. Nine case report studies, five case series studies, three clinical trials, and three retrospective review studies were found. The results showed that various treatment methods are available, including elevating limbs, pain relief, hot and cold compresses, flush-out technique with saline, dressings (hydrocolloid, hydrogel, and hydrocellular foam), medications (2% nitroglycerin ointment and subcutaneous administration of hyaluronidase and phentolamine), and new methods such as amniotic membranes, omega-3-rich fish skin (Kerecis), active leptospermum honey (ALH), PRP, and surgical removal. Conclusions: Despite many medical advances, there is still no specific approach to managing extravasation in infants. The ideal approach to extravasation injuries is still to prevent them initially. The best next step is to minimize the damage using antidotes or hyaluronidase. Using saline to remove the solution and physically minimize damage can be useful. Thus, more studies are needed to address extravasation management in infants.