Many of the hazards associated with injections into blood vessels are well known. Disasters can result from injection of the wrong substance or the wrong dosage. Injecting into artery instead of vein may produce serious iatrogenic disease.
Another hazard is the introduction of foreign bodies of some type. From the first clinical report in 1954,1 physicians have recognized the possibility of losing a polyethylene catheter into the vascular system. Northcutt2 lists the resultant complications: thrombosis, embolism, bacterial endocarditis, perforation of the right ventricle with secondary cardiac tamponade, pericardial effusion, mural thrombus formation, edema of the extremity, erosion of the vein wall, lung abscess, and death.
Less clearly defined risks are connected with the phenomenon of coring, which Charlebois3 has defined, in a recent study, as "... the mechanism by which particles of material are cut away from a pharmaceutical closure or plug upon the insertion of a hollow