How to Use a Huber Needle

Several medical treatments such as chemotherapy require medication to be introduced into the body regularly or blood to be drawn; to accommodate this, a plastic port, or catheter, is implanted in a prominent vein. Caregivers push a Huber needle into the port when they need to give medication or draw blood. Proper use of the Huber needle protects patients from pain and infection.

Things You'll Need

• Huber needle (coring or non-coring, depending on use)
• Water and soap
• Surgical gloves
• Anesthetic cream
• Chloral prep (for sterilization)
• Blood vials
• Medication as prescribed
• Sterile gauze
• Medical tape

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Instructions

• 1

  Use a 1-inch Huber needle for thin adults, a 1 ½-inch Huber needle for heavier adults and a 3/4-inch Huber needle for children. Choose safety Huber needles if possible. The extraction of Huber needles can be tricky; they can retract suddenly causing physical injury to the nurse or medical personnel. There are several safety Huber needles that shield the needle when it is being removed to prevent such accidents.

• 2

  Clean your hands thoroughly with soap and water, and place dry hands in surgical gloves before you use the Huber needle.

• 3

  Apply anesthetic cream on the area of the patient’s skin where the port is implanted about half an hour before the introduction of the Huber needle. This will ensure that the patient does not suffer any pain or discomfort when receiving medication.

• 4

  Rub the site on the skin where you will insert the Huber needle with chloral prep for 30 seconds with quick but gentle back-and-forth strokes to sterilize the area immediately before using the Huber needle.

• 5

  Attach the Huber needle to a syringe filled with 10 milliliters (ml) of liquid sterile saline.

• 6

  Feel the patient’s skin for the port’s opening with your fingertips. Hold the port in place with your non-dominant hand. Push the Huber needle through the skin until you feel it touch the bottom of the port. Make sure you have inserted the Huber needle correctly by aspirating it so that a little of the patient’s blood flows through the Huber needle’s tube. Inject the saline.

• 7

  Attach the Huber needle to the catheter, which contains the medication that the patient needs. Inject the medicine slowly, allowing no more than 5 ml per second to be introduced into the patient.

• 8

  Alternately, use the Huber needle to extract blood. Discard the first 5 ml of blood because it will have a large amount of saline in it. Withdraw the necessary amount of blood and store it appropriately in a blood vial.

• 9

  Inject 10 ml of sterile saline or 5 ml of heparin, whichever the doctor has prescribed, after you finish injecting the medicine. Inject 20 ml of saline if you had to draw blood.

• 10

  Remove the needle after injecting the saline, and immediately apply pressure with a folded piece of sterile gauze. If the injection will take some time, place some medical tape across the Huber needle on either side of the skin to hold it in place.

  Follow the same steps for each port if the patient has a dual port system.