To compare the efficacy and safety of peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) and central venous catheter (CVC) in the clinical application of cancer patients by systematic evaluation of all published clinically relevant randomized controlled trials of those two catheterization methods.

The literature of randomized controlled clinical trials of PICC and CVC in cancer patients were retrieved from CNKI, WanFang Data and VIP databases. The retrieval time was from the establishment of the database to August 2018. Meta-analysis was performed using MATLAB-R2016 software after two researchers independently screened the literature, extracted data and evaluated the methodological quality of the included studies according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria.

A total of 436 articles were retrieved, and 19 articles were eventually included, involving 2 242 patients with cancer. Meta-analysis showed that the success rate of primary catheterization in the PICC group was significantly higher than that in the CVC group [RR=1.16, 95% CI (1.03-1.31), P=0.018]; the indwelling time in the PICC group was significantly longer than that in the CVC group [MD=87.98, 95% CI (54.64-121.33), P<0.01]; the catheter shedding rate in the PICC group was significantly lower than that in the CVC group [RR=0.21, 95% CI (0.12-0.37), P<0.01]. The catheter infection rate in the PICC group was significantly lower than that in the CVC group [RR=0.23, 95% CI (0.15-0.37), P<0.01]; the incidence of pneumothorax in the PICC group was significantly lower than that in the CVC group [RR=0.16, 95% CI (0.06-0.46), P<0.01]; the incidence of mistakenly entering arteries in the PICC group was significantly lower than that in the CVC group [RR=0.17, 95% CI (0.08-0.36), P=0.001]; and the incidence of phlebitis in the PICC group was significantly higher than that in the CVC group [RR=3.53, 95% CI (2.15-5.81), P<0.01]. In addition, there was no significant difference in the incidence of catheter obstruction between the two groups (P>0.05).

PICC has the characteristics of high success rate, long indwelling time and fewer complications in the clinical application of cancer patients, which can be widely used in clinical cancer patients. And the quality of all the research papers included in this study is low, the evaluation of the efficacy and safety of PICC and CVC needs to continue to increase the level of research forfurther validation analysis.