saline lock

saline lock

A device with one or more ports which is used to infuse saline.

saline lock

An intravenous portal, usually placed and left in a vein in one of the patient's arms, and used episodically for fluid or medication infusions. Salt water flushes are used to maintain its patency. Saline locks replaced heparin locks in the 1990s because of cost and efficacy and because heparin locks posed a rare but unacceptable risk of heparin-related allergies, esp. heparin-related thrombocytopenia.