New medical evidence indicates that it may be in the best interests of a patient to remove an IVC filter as soon as it is medically safe to do so. Most IVC filters, whether or not they are retrievable, are never taken out. According to an analysis of 37 different studies, most IVC filters end up staying in the patient’s body, putting that patient at risk for serious issues.

Can a Temporary IVC Filter Cause Side Effects?

Filter fracture was previously believed to happen approximately 5 percent of the time in temporary IVC filters. However, the prevalence of this condition increases to up to 40 percent for IVC filters that stay in for five years. This is one of the major reasons why the FDA warns against keeping IVC filters in any longer than necessary. One study at Boston Medical Center found that only 8.5 percent of patients had their IVCs ever removed.

Should an IVC Filter Be Removed Immediately?

When a doctor is thinking about whether or not to remove an IVC filter, the first step is to analyze whether or not acute deep venous thrombosis (DVT) or pulmonary embolism (PE) is already present. Common recommendations, according to the Interventional Cardiology Review, include allowing that patient to go through two to three weeks of anticoagulation prior to taking out the IVC filter.

When Should the IVC Filter Removal Occur?

As soon as the risk of a blood clot that travels to the lungs has passed or when a patient becomes eligible to take blood thinners, a retrievable IVC filter can be taken out. A physician might also recommend removing an IVC filter when it is no longer needed.

The introduction of removable filters did make them an increasingly attractive option for more medical needs. Because there are removable filters on the market, they are used more frequently, even in less severe cases.

At the same time, it still can be important to not wait too long to remove a remove an IVC filter that is retrievable, says Endovascular Today, because doing so can put the patient at risk. The news source explains why it is important to remove temporary IVC filters once they are no longer needed.

Reportedly, if the filters are left in the body for too long, it may be increasingly difficult to remove them — in fact, the effort to remove IVC filters that have been left in the body for a prolonged period of time has been seen to fail up to 43 percent of the time. This increased failure rate of IVC filter retrieval has reportedly been observed in numerous studies.

According to Endovascular Today, when retrieval of an IVC filter left in too long fails, this failure is most often the result of the filter becoming incorporated into the vascular wall. If the filter has become incorporated into the vascular wall, it can break and possibly puncture the vascular wall or become lodged in the bloodstream. 

This risk of removing IVC filters that are left in for an extended period of time has led many experts to believe that it is best to leave long-standing filters in the body when their presence does not pose a risk to the patient.

What Is the Procedure to Remove an IVC Filter?

According to the Radiological Society of North America, much like the procedure used to implant the filter, the procedure to remove an IVC filter involves inserting a small catheter-based wire loop into the large vein in the neck. Most of these procedures are performed on an outpatient basis with some post-procedure observation, allowing the patient to return to normal activities the following day.

What Can Happen If I Don’t Get the IVC Filter Taken Out?

Retrievable IVC filters, as mentioned above, should be removed from the patient as soon as it is safe to do so. IVC filters left in over a long period of time could expose the patient to unnecessary risks which can cause serious medical problems. Symptoms that are causing pain should be reported by the patient to their physician as soon as possible.

One of the most serious of these involves the IVC filter poking other organs or blood vessels in the body. Some of the most common symptoms presented by patients, indicating IVC filter puncture, are abdominal and back pain. For this reason, many patients argue that IVC filters are dangerous and that the companies producing these have failed to go far enough in providing warnings to the medical community and to doctors about the possibility of these side effects.

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