Irrigation of indwelling urinary catheters.
Patients with chronic indwelling urinary catheters were studied to determine whether or not catheter irrigation with a sterile nonbacteriostatic solution should be part of routine care. One thousand catheter days were studied with catheters irrigated half of the time. Irrigation was found to be a costly and time-consuming procedure which had no effect on the patients' clinical course except to decrease the incidence of catheter plugging.
D001437:Bacteriuria / Q000382:microbiology; D002408:Catheters, Indwelling; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D007507:Therapeutic Irrigation / Q000191:economics; D001750:Urinary Bladder, Neurogenic / Q000628:therapy; D014546:Urinary Catheterization / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000379:methods*; D014549:Urinary Incontinence / Q000628:therapy