Central venous port devices are indicated for patients, who need long-term intravenous therapy. Oncologic patients may require intermittent administration of chemotherapy, parenteral nutrition, infusions, or blood transfusions. A venous port system is composed of a port chamber attached to a central catheter, which is implanted into the central venous system. The subcutaneous location of the catheter chamber improves the patients’ quality of life and the infection rate is lower than in non-totally implantable central venous devices. However, proper implantation, use, and care of a port system are important to prevent short- and long-term complications. Most common early complications (< 30 days) include venous malpositioning of catheter and perforation with arterial injury, pneumothorax, hemothorax, thoracic duct injury, or even cardiac tamponade. Delayed complications include infection, catheter thrombosis, vessel thrombosis and stenosis, catheter fracture with extravasation, or fracture with migration or embolization of catheter material. Radiologic imaging has become highly relevant in intra-procedural assessment and postoperative follow-up, for detection of possible complications and to plan intervention, e.g., in case of catheter migration. This pictorial review presents the normal imaging appearance of central venous port systems and demonstrates imaging features of short- and long-term complications.

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Malignant melanoma is an aggressive skin cancer with no effective therapies currently approved for advanced disease. In the case presented, a 55-year-old female patient diagnosed with widespread disease from amelanotic desmoplastic melanoma was treated with 10 mg/kg ipilimumab as part of a phase II clinical trial (CA184-008). Prior to ipilimumab, three chemotherapeutic regimens had failed. Ipilimumab acts as a T-cell potentiator via blockade of cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen-4, a negative regulator of T-cell activation. Response to ipilimumab treatment was rapid, with a substantial drop in tumor volume within 12 weeks of treatment initiation. Based on the appearance of a new subcutaneous lesion, reinduction with ipilimumab was performed at Week 30. Following reinduction, the appearance of another small new lesion made the patient ineligible, as per protocol, for further dosing despite stabilization of her remaining lesions. Ipilimumab-associated immune-related adverse events were manageable with the use of treatment guidelines. It is of remarkable immunotherapeutic importance that no new lesions emerged and gradual tumor regression is still ongoing more than 2 years following the last dose of ipilimumab, despite daily administration of systemic corticosteroids to manage drug-induced AEs. The ongoing clinical response is maintained without any further antineoplastic treatment.

The results of our study suggest: (a) an age-dependent distribution of MB variants, with DMB and MB-EN more common in younger children; (b) a female predominance in DMB; (c) a more common off-midline location in DMB (50%) and MB-EN (33%) variants.

LNR appears to be a good prognostic factor for survival or recurrence after curative resection for ICC.