“…99 Descriptive and prospective nonrandomized trials have reported a number of patient benefits, including no need for additional peripheral venipunctures, greater convenience, and arms left free for activities of daily living, whereas patients generally disliked the visibility of ports and complained about site soreness. 9,100 Clinical trials to evaluate safety, costs, and quality of life of central venous ports have been basically open-label, single-arm, Phase II studies [101][102][103] Vascular Access in Oncology Patients or comparative studies with externalized tunneled systems; they have provided little information on quality of life and global costs, especially when only prospective data are taken into consideration, 104,105 A paper from our group 64 has provided clinicians, health care planners, and funding agencies with data derived from a large prospective study on total cost of devices for long-term chemotherapy of solid tumors. Briefly, 333 port devices, amounting to a total of 79,178 days in situ, were placed during a 30-month period in 328 patients (5 patients underwent a second placement after removal of the first device), who were followed prospectively for a minimum of 180 days in order to detect device-related and overall complications.…”