Failure of intravenous infusions from extravasation and phlebitis.

A survey was done to compare the rates at which phlebitis and extravasation cause failure of intravenous infusions lasting more than 24 hours. Slightly more infusions failed due to phlebitis than to extravasation but extravasation did not occur earlier or later than phlebitis or differ significantly from it in frequency when different types of infusions were compared. Univariate life table analysis indicated that the co-infusion of blood, potassium or cephalosporin antibiotics slightly increased and that higher flow rates markedly increased failure, that infusions including continuous heparin and steroids had markedly decreased failure, and that failure was not significantly affected by other antibiotics or by differences in sex, age, location of infusion site or time of year. Multivariate analysis showed that the above differences were statistically significant only for infusion rate, heparin and steroids.