Microbiological analysis of the central venous catheter tips from hospitalized patients at Hospital Universitário of Universidade Estadual de Londrina

Abstract

Central Venous Catheters (CVC) are used in intravenous therapy in order to facilitate diagnosis and treatment. They allow medicine administration, parenteral nutrition and also vascular access in hemodialysis. However, the use of these catheters offers risks of systemic and local infection, including endocarditis and bacteremia. The aim of this study was to isolate microorganisms from CVC utilizing the semiquantitative culture technique, and to identify them through conventional biochemical tests and an automated system. For the study, 198 CVC tips were evaluated and 105 (53%) were considered positive, that is, showed microbial growth ³ 15 CFU. The microorganisms found were the following: 63.8% Grampositive bacteria, 30.5% Gram-negative bacteria, and 5.7% yeast. The most isolated were: coagulasenegative Staphylococci (35.2%), Staphylococcus aureus (25.7%), Klebsiella pneumoniae (8.5%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (7.6%), Acinetobacter baumannii (7.6%) and Candida albicans (4.7%). The increase of infection cases related to catheter has been observed worldwide reflecting the increase of invasive medical procedures used to treat patients. This work allowed the identification of the microorganisms most frequently isolated from CVC tips at a teaching hospital in the region of Londrina- PR. The identification of these microorganisms is extremely important in order to optimize the treatment of the infections and to establish methods of prevention.