Bioconectores: ¿Son realmente eficaces en la reducción de las bacteriemias relacionadas con el catéter permanente para hemodiálisis?

Abstract

One of the greatest problems presented by tunnelled central venous catheters for haemodialysis is infections, on account of their seriousness and the high costs they generate. Prevention is therefore important because, in addition, the number of catheters has increased considerably in recent years.
Objectives: We carried out this study in our unit to analyse:
• Efficacy of closed-system connectors (TEGO®) in the prevention of catheter-related bacteraemia.
• Incidence of Staphylococcus aureus and most frequent infection-causing germs.
Material and method: A transversal retrospective comparative study was carried out over 800 days, which we divided into two equal periods. In the first 400 days, the unit protocol was applied to 24 patients and in the next 400 days the same protocol was applied plus the above-mentioned connectors to 25 patients. In both periods, 19 of the patients were the same.
Results: In the first period, 4 infections were counted in 7062 catheter days and in the second period, 2 infections in 8622 catheter days.
Bacteraemia index in each period: 0.56/1000 and 0.23/1000 respectively.
No Staphylococcus aureus infection occurred, the most frequent germ being Coagulase-negative Staphylococcus.
Conclusion: Our conclusion is that the connectors were effective in preventing bacteraemia as they notably reduced our already low indices.