A port catheter is supposed to be the part of cancer treatment that makes everything else easier. Instead of hunting for a vein at every visit, a small reservoir sits under the skin of the chest, connected to a soft catheter threaded into a large vein near the heart. Chemotherapy, contrast for imaging, fluids, antibiotics and blood draws all run through it. Patients often live with one for years.
When that device fails, the failure is rarely minor. A catheter that fractures inside a vein can send a fragment traveling toward the heart or lungs, and retrieving it means an interventional procedure on someone whose body is already under the strain of treatment. An infection seeded at the device does not stay local, it goes into the bloodstream. A port that has to come out interrupts the treatment schedule it was implanted to protect.
Thousands of patients who received Bard PowerPort devices have filed claims alleging that the catheter portion was prone to fracture, migration and related complications. This article sets out what the FDA’s own records show, where the litigation actually stands, and how Nevada law and Nevada deadlines apply if you are a patient here.
What a Port Catheter Is and Why It Is Implanted
An implanted port has two parts. The port body is a small chamber with a silicone septum, placed in a surgically created pocket under the skin, usually on the upper chest. The catheter is a flexible tube attached to the port that is tunneled under the skin and advanced through a vein until its tip sits in a large central vein near the heart.
The reason for placing it centrally is chemistry. Many chemotherapy agents are vesicants, meaning they damage tissue if they leak out of a small peripheral vein. A central vein carries enough blood flow to dilute the drug immediately. The port also spares patients the repeated peripheral sticks that become progressively harder as treatment goes on and veins scar.
Power injectable ports, the category the PowerPort name refers to, are built to tolerate the high flow rates used for contrast enhanced CT imaging, so the same device serves both treatment and imaging. That dual use is a genuine benefit and part of why these devices became so common in oncology, in long term antibiotic therapy and in patients receiving parenteral nutrition.
The Failures Patients Report
The complications described in these claims fall into a recognizable set.
- Catheter fracture, where the tube separates and a fragment is released into the vascular system
- Migration or embolization of a fragment toward the heart or pulmonary arteries, sometimes requiring endovascular retrieval
- Bloodstream infection and sepsis associated with the device
- Thrombosis, meaning clot formation on or around the catheter, with the vein occlusion and swelling that follow
- Occlusion or difficulty flushing, infusing or drawing blood through the device
- Erosion of the port through the overlying skin, or movement of the port within its pocket
- Revision or explant surgery, and the treatment delays that come with it
Plaintiffs in the consolidated litigation allege that the polyurethane material used in the catheter, and the way barium sulfate was incorporated into it to make the device visible on imaging, left the tubing vulnerable to degradation and cracking over time. That is an allegation being tested through expert evidence in litigation. It is not a conclusion any regulator has published, and this article does not treat it as one.
What the FDA Record Actually Shows
There is a meaningful difference between what is alleged in court and what appears in the agency’s files, and being clear about it is more useful to a patient than blurring the two.
The entries in FDA’s device recall database that name the PowerPort line describe a specific set of problems. In March 2021 Bard Peripheral Vascular initiated a recall of PowerPort duo M.R.I. implantable ports with an attachable dual lumen venous catheter, giving as the reason that catheters may experience difficulty in flushing, infusion or aspiration, and septum dislodgements, with the root cause recorded as process control. In October 2019 a recall addressed the risk that product might contain a tunneler with a barb tip intended for a smaller catheter than the one supplied, which the entry notes can result in prolongation of an operation. In February 2019 a recall concerned products packaged with the incorrect introducer sheath size. Earlier entries from 2014 and 2010 concern a labeling discrepancy about silicone suture plugs and a mix up in which stems of one size were packaged with ports of another.
Those are packaging, labeling and component control problems, plus one entry describing flushing difficulty and septum dislodgement. None of the recall entries naming this product line is a recall for catheter fracture. Anyone telling a patient that the device was recalled because it breaks is describing something the recall record does not say.
Adverse event reporting tells a different kind of story. FDA maintains the Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience database, known as MAUDE, which collects reports of device malfunctions, injuries and deaths. Searched by the PowerPort brand name, MAUDE held 8,231 reports as of July 2026. The annual pattern is steep. There were 370 reports in 2020, 644 in 2021, 768 in 2022, 590 in 2023, 1,054 in 2024, 2,800 in 2025, and 1,369 already logged in the first part of 2026.
Read that carefully rather than dramatically. MAUDE is a passive surveillance system. Reports are not verified before they are posted, a report does not establish that the device caused the event described, and FDA is explicit that the data cannot be used to calculate how often a problem occurs or to compare one device against another. Report volume also rises when a product becomes the subject of litigation and advertising, because more people go looking for a place to report. The honest reading is that reporting about this device increased sharply, which is a signal worth investigating, not proof of a failure rate.
Where the Bard Port Litigation Stands Right Now
Federal cases involving these devices are consolidated. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation created MDL 3081, In re Bard Implanted Port Catheter Products Liability Litigation, and transferred it to the District of Arizona in August 2023, where it is assigned to Judge David G. Campbell under master docket number 2:23-md-3081. The Panel’s statistics report dated July 1, 2026 lists 3,564 actions pending in that proceeding, out of 3,784 filed in it historically. The Panel publishes those figures on its own pending MDL dockets page, and they are updated regularly.
Consolidation means coordinated pretrial proceedings before one judge, including discovery on issues common to every case and rulings on shared legal questions. It is not a class action. Each claim remains an individual case that has to be proven on its own medical records. Cases not resolved during the consolidated proceedings can be remanded to the districts where they were originally filed.
We do not predict how this litigation will end, what any case might be worth, or when anything will be resolved, and we would treat any firm that does so with suspicion. What we can tell you is the procedural posture above, which is a matter of public record, and that a Nevada patient who wants to be part of it needs an individually filed case supported by device identification, imaging and medical proof.
How Nevada Law Treats a Defective Device Claim
A claim over an implanted device is a product liability claim, and Nevada recognizes the familiar theories. A manufacturing defect claim says this particular unit departed from its intended design. A design defect claim says the design itself was unreasonably dangerous. A failure to warn claim says the risks were not adequately communicated to those entitled to know them. Claims for breach of warranty and for negligence in design, manufacture or post market surveillance often accompany them.
Two features of device litigation deserve a plain warning rather than false comfort. Warnings for a prescription device are directed to the implanting physician and the hospital rather than written for the patient, which shapes how a warning claim is framed and what proof it requires. And federal preemption arguments are standard in medical device cases, with their strength depending heavily on the regulatory pathway a particular device went through before it reached the market. Both are questions to ask about your specific device rather than assume in either direction, and both are reasons these cases are handled differently from an ordinary consumer product case. Our overview of defective medical device injury claims in Nevada covers the general structure.
Nevada’s modified comparative negligence rule under NRS 41.141 applies, barring recovery where the claimant’s share of fault exceeds 50 percent and otherwise reducing damages in proportion to that share. Where a patient has died, NRS 41.085 identifies the heirs and the personal representative of the estate as the parties who may bring wrongful death claims, and the same framework we describe for wrongful death cases caused by defective products in Nevada applies here.
The Two Year Clock and When It Starts
Nevada allows two years to bring an action to recover damages for injuries to a person caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another, under NRS 11.190(4)(e). In a device case the difficulty is almost never the length of the period. It is fixing the date it started.
Nevada applies a discovery based approach to accrual where an injury or its cause is not immediately apparent, so the period generally begins when the claimant knew, or through reasonable diligence should have known, of the facts giving rise to the claim. A patient who has been told for two years that fatigue and shortness of breath are treatment side effects, and who only learns from a scan that a catheter fragment is lodged in a pulmonary artery, is in a different position from a patient who was told at the time of an emergency retrieval exactly what had happened.
The practical consequence is that specific dates matter enormously. The date of the imaging study that first showed the problem, the date of the retrieval or revision procedure, and the date any physician first said the device had failed are the dates a defense lawyer will build an argument around. Gather them early. Our article on the product liability statute of limitations covers the general rules, but a device case usually needs the specific chronology before anyone can give you a real answer.
The Records That Decide These Cases
Device cases are won and lost on documentation, and most of it is obtainable by the patient directly.
- The operative report from the implant procedure, which usually names the device and the technique used
- The device identification page from the implant record, showing manufacturer, model or reference number, lot number and the unique device identifier, often on a peel off sticker in the chart
- All imaging that shows the device and any fragment, including chest films, CT scans and fluoroscopy, and the radiology reports interpreting them
- The operative or procedure report from any retrieval, revision or explant
- Infectious disease consultation notes, blood culture results and any records of sepsis treatment
- The explanted device itself, which hospitals will otherwise discard as a matter of routine
That last item is the one patients almost never think about in time. If a port or catheter fragment is going to be removed, ask the hospital in writing, before the procedure, to preserve the explanted device and any fragment rather than dispose of it. The physical device is the single most important piece of evidence in a manufacturing or design defect claim, and once it goes into a biohazard container it is gone. The medical and financial consequences of a device failure during cancer treatment can be severe enough to fall into the same practical category as other catastrophic injury claims, and the human toll of interrupted treatment is part of what the law recognizes as pain and suffering in a personal injury claim.
Talking to The Bourassa Law Group About a Port Catheter Claim
If you received an implanted port during cancer treatment or long term therapy in Nevada and experienced a fracture, a migrated fragment, a bloodstream infection, a clot or an unplanned removal, The Bourassa Law Group offers a free consultation to review the device records, the imaging, the medical documentation and the deadlines that apply to your situation. The same is true for families who lost someone after a device complication.
Bring what you have, even if it is incomplete. A discharge summary, a bill listing the device, or a scan report naming a fragment is often enough to start identifying which device was implanted and what records need to be requested. We will tell you what the documentation actually supports, and we will not attach a value to a case at a first meeting, because that number does not responsibly exist yet.
This article is general information about Nevada law and about the public record maintained by the Food and Drug Administration and the federal courts, and it is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney client relationship. Every claim depends on its own facts, device history and medical proof, so speak with a licensed Nevada attorney about your circumstances, or read more about Nevada personal injury representation.
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