Introduction: Central venous catheters (CVCs) are widely used in the management and resuscitation of critically ill patients in emergency departments and intensive care units. Correct depth of insertion of the CVC line is important to ensure uninterrupted flow, avoid complications, and monitor central venous pressure. Transthoracic echocardiography, with contrast enhancement, has been proposed as an alternative to chest X-ray in detecting central venous line positioning with high accuracy. Nevertheless, this method is not widely used due to some previous conflicting results and the cumbersomeness of the procedure.

Material and methods: After approval by the Institutional Ethics Committee, this prospective observational study was carried out in patients for whom a central venous line was warranted. The study was conducted in the Intensive Care Unit of a tertiary care hospital among 150 adult patients to compare the “Rapid Atrial Swirl Sign” (RASS) technique by transthoracic echocardiography and the landmark-based technique for ensuring accurate depth of central venous line placement.

Results: In this study, we found that the mean depth of insertion of the CVC for the Echocardiography RASS group (E) was 12.84 cm, while for the Landmark technique group (L), it was 12.02 cm. There was a significant difference between these groups, with a p-value of <0.05. We found that the majority of patients (98.63%) in Group E had the catheter tip in Zones 1, 2, and 3, while only 66.6% of patients in Group L had the catheter tip in similar zones. The mean standard deviation for zones on chest X-ray was 1.8 for Group E and 2.26 for Group L, with a significant difference between these groups (p-value <0.05).

Conclusion: The RASS technique is superior to the landmark technique in ensuring the correct depth of the tip of the CVC. When confirmed by chest X-ray, it was found that most patients had the catheter tip in Zone 1, 2, or 3 using the RASS technique. This confirms that the RASS technique can minimize the requirement of resources and hasten the initiation of patient management in a timely manner, unlike the landmark technique, which requires chest X-ray confirmation before use.

Kairidibo, Pandey AR, Dwivedi V, Prakash S, Rath A, Reena, Dwivedi K, Pandey R. “Rapid Atrial Swirl Sign“: A Better Tool Than the Landmark Technique for Ensuring Correct Depth of Insertion of Central Venous Catheters. Cureus. 2024 Jul 23;16(7):e65211. doi: 10.7759/cureus.65211. PMID: 39184717; PMCID: PMC11343511.