PREVENTION OF INFECTION IN UROLOGY PATIENTS THROUGH THE USE OF NOVEL DEVICES

Abstract

Indwelling medical devices such as urinary catheters and peritoneal dialysis (PD) catheters are very useful in managing critically ill patients, especially with urological disorders. However, long term use of urinary catheter introduces risks including catheter associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) and is associated with many infectious and non-infectious complications. Catheter associated infections, peritonitis, and failure due to omentum wrapping are some of the problems associated with PD catheters. Bacterial biofilms are largely responsible for persistent infections and failure of these medical devices. In this work, we demonstrate the application of different novel coatings on urinary and PD catheters to overcome these challenges in vivo. We have also established a porcine model of CAUTI as well as a porcine model of PD. In addition, we have established a simple, accurate and reproducible method for extraction and measurement of biofilm bacteria from indwelling catheters.