It was reported that the doctor was in the operating room for shunt installation.They prepared the valve, (filling the valve with normal saline preservative free) and connected the valve to the ventricular catheter.The doctor watched the csf coming out from the distal end of the valve and there was nothing coming back.They disconnected the valve and refilled the valve again making sure there was no air in the reservoir.They reconnected the valve, and there was no csf coming out of the valve.The doctor took another valve and it did the same thing.They decided to use a strata burr hole valve, and set it up at the same level, and the csf was flowing easily form the distal end of the valve.The 2 valves were thrown in the garbage, and the 2 remaining valves are being retrieved from the hospital and will be returned for analysis.The patient got a programmable valve and they were doing fine.It was noted that the manufacturer's representative met with the neurosurgeon, and they tested 1 of the 2 remaining valves with the same serial number, and it appeared that the proximal end was not flowing.The doctor thinks that the proximal end was blocked because when why were filling the valve with the proximal end in the ns and not the distal, the valve could not be filled.
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