Skin entry site swabbing a poor predictor of catheter-related sepsis.

only two cases did results of swabbing correlate with tip culture (see Table). In both of these cases the organism was a coagulase-negative staphylococcus labeled Staphylococcus epidermis However, speciation was not performed and antibiotic susceptibilities were not determined fbr the isolates from entry-site swabbing. It is thus possible that these organisms represented different species or different strains within a species. Other investigators have also found a similar poor correlation between skin swabbing and catheter tip cultures. Hence, we would not recommend routine entry-site swabbing in the management of central venous catheters. Intravenous lines should be removed if there is any suspicion of catheter-related sepsis and culture of the catheter, preferably with a semiquantitative technique, should be performed.