First10EM - December 23, 2019 - By Justin Morgenstern
...In this retrospective look at patients in the operating room, extravasation of peripheral norepinephrine was extraordinarily rare (0.035%) and there were no true adverse events. However, there are multiple reasons that this data may not extrapolate to sick emergency department patients...
Considering that central lines also have an adverse event rate of around 2%, and those adverse events are frequently more consequential than an extravasation, there is clearly a role for the use of peripheral vasopressors in emergency medicine. In fact, for some patients, peripheral vasopressors are probably preferable to a central line..."