Legacy Client Luminetx Corp. featured in The Wall Street Journal

An Easier Way to Find Veins

Tired of feeling like a human pincushion every time you get an IV line inserted? A new device uses infrared light to help nurses and phlebotomists, who specialize in drawing blood, locate veins. The company that sells the VeinViewer says it will drastically reduce the need for multiple needle sticks to find blood vessels. Clinicians say the device, while not needed for everyone, is making venipuncture less painful and stressful for patients with difficult-to-see veins.

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Nearly every hospital patient, and many outpatients, must get needles inserted into their veins for the intravenous delivery of fluids or medicine. Veins are also punctured for blood transfusions, tests and blood donation. Generally done by a nurse or phlebotomist, the procedure involves tying a tourniquet a few inches above the puncture site to make veins stand out.

It's hardly anyone's idea of a good time. But some people, known in medical circles as "hard sticks," suffer more than others -- sometimes enduring as many as six to eight punctures before the vein is found. Hard sticks often include people who are obese, in whom surface fat obscures veins, and children, who have baby fat obscuring their veins and who sometimes can't hold still. If a patient is dehydrated or has a chronic illness such as cancer, the veins often don't show up as well. People who get stuck often get scarred veins, forcing clinicians to hunt for less-obvious spots.

Absorbing Infrared Light

The VeinViewer, from Luminetx Corp., Memphis, Tenn., went on sale this summer and is now available in about 100 hospitals nationwide. It consists of a large pole on wheels with an adjustable arm containing an infrared light and a visible green light for background contrast. When the infrared light shines on the patient, it is absorbed by hemoglobin in the blood but reflected back by other tissues -- making veins look dark gray against a green background.

The machine costs hospitals $25,000. That's a big price tag compared with the low-tech method of looking carefully and using fingers to feel for veins. Some hospitals also use hand-held devices called transilluminators that use visible light -- often red or orange -- to get a better look.

More Depth

So far, there is no published clinical research on the VeinViewer. An unpublished Luminetx-funded study tried out the device on 30 patients on whom blood-center staff were unable to find a vein after multiple sticks. With the VeinViewer, the staff found veins on the first try in 29 of the patients and with only two tries on the remaining patient, Luminetx says.

Some clinicians who have tried the VeinViewer are impressed. The device is "leaps and bounds" above the older transillumination technology because the infrared light makes the veins visible much deeper, says Joel Saltzman, a physician at Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center in Memphis.

Transilluminators do, however, have the advantage of being much less expensive and small enough to be carried to homes by traveling nurses. A popular hand-held model called the Venoscope sold by Venoscope LLC of Lafayette, La., costs $175 and weighs about six ounces.

Most people won't need the pricey VeinViewer, says Dennis J. Ernst, a medical technologist who wrote a textbook on drawing blood. Patients can help making finding veins easier by making sure they're well hydrated, particularly in the case of children. But for the chronically ill and others who are hard to stick, it is a wonderful invention, adds Mr. Ernst. "If I were an oncology patient and I needed regular blood work," he says, "I would certainly go to a facility that had it."