Low infection rates and prolonged survival times of hemodialysis catheters in infants and children.
OBJECTIVE
Hemodialysis (HD) catheter-related complications are regarded as the main cause of HD failure in infants and children with ESRD. In this study, we determined HD catheter infection rates and survival times in children.


METHODS
We analyzed demographic, clinical, laboratory, and microbiologic data on all infants and children with ESRD who received HD therapy through a tunneled central venous catheter (CVC) in our Pediatric Dialysis Unit between January 2001 and December 2009. Our strict care of HD-CVCs makes no use of any kind of prophylactic antibiotic therapy.


RESULTS
Twenty-nine children with ESRD (median age, 10 years) received HD through a CVC, for a total of 22,892 days during the study period. Eleven (38%) children were infants (<1 year of age) who received HD for a cumulative 3779 days (16% of total). Fifty-nine CVCs were inserted, of which 13 (22%) were in infants. There were 12 episodes of CVC infection-a rate of 0.52/1000 CVC days. Four (33%) episodes occurred in infants-a rate of 1.06/1000 CVC days. Only three (5%) of the CVCs were removed because of infection. Median catheter survival time for all children was 310 days and for infants was 211 days.


CONCLUSIONS
Very low CVC infection rates (one infection per 5 CVC years) and prolonged CVC survival times (around 1 year) are achievable in infants and children with ESRD receiving HD therapy by adhering to a strict catheter management protocol and without using prophylactic antibiotic therapy.
Division of Pediatric Nephrology, Meyer Children’s Hospital, Rambam Health Care Campus, Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.
Israel
I
Eisenstein
Mahdi
M
Tarabeih
Daniella
D
Magen
Shirley
S
Pollack
Imad
I
Kassis
Amos
A
Ofer
Ahuva
A
Engel
Israel
I
Zelikovic
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D055499:Catheter-Related Infections / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002405:Catheterization, Central Venous / Q000295:instrumentation*; D002408:Catheters, Indwelling / Q000009:adverse effects; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007676:Kidney Failure, Chronic / Q000628:therapy*; D008297:Male; D006435:Renal Dialysis / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000295:instrumentation*