[Infections due to central catheterizations in a cardiac intensive care unit: an evaluation of 6 months of continuous surveillance. The nursing personnel of a cardiac intensive care unit].
BACKGROUND
Infections in intensive care unit are nowadays well documented. As no recent papers about catheter related infections in cardiological intensive care units were found, we decided to approach them during a period of six months with a surveillance study including a clinical, nursing and microbiological protocol.


METHODS
The microbiological protocol the semiquantitative Maki cultural evaluation of the tips, the interior of the hubs and the skin around the catheter insertion point. In addition, all the samples were additionally cultured in liquid media. A total of 432 biological samples were analysed, from 125 patients entered into our cardiological intensive care unit: 144 from catheter tips, 144 from the hubs and 144 from the skin around the catheter insertion.


RESULTS
Three hundred and eighty-four biological samples (88.9%) were completely negative. Thirteen tips resulted positive (27.1% of the 48 total positive biological samples): 92.3% (12/13) of the positive catheters were infected from internal origin, hub and skin resulting culture negative. Of the 144 catheter tips 12 were colonized (C.F.U. < 15) while only 2 resulted infected (C.F.U. > or = 15). Only one patient was infected with an exogenous infection presenting tip, hub and skin positivity. The overall positivity was of 214 microorganisms mainly represented (93.5%) by gram positives; 87% of them were coagulase-negative staphylococci (C.N.S.). In addition, the tip detection of a Candida guillermondii strain in a pacemaker patient is a relevant finding.


CONCLUSIONS
The very low number of cutaneous contaminations (1.3%) and patient's infections (0.69%) showed the good sensibilisation of the medical and nursing teams in the infection control and surveillance.
D001419:Bacteria / Q000302:isolation & purification; D002405:Catheterization, Central Venous / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000451:nursing; D003325:Coronary Care Units; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000209:etiology* / Q000382:microbiology / Q000451:nursing; D004783:Environmental Microbiology; D004866:Equipment Contamination; D006801:Humans; D011159:Population Surveillance; D013997:Time Factors; D000078329:Workforce
Infezioni da cateterismi centrali in UTIC: valutazione di sei mesi di sorveglianza continua. Personale infermieristico UTIC.