Antibiotic lock solutions for the prevention of catheter-related bacteraemia in haemodialysis patients.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effect of antibiotic lock solutions for preventing catheter-related bacteraemia in patients receiving haemodialysis. DESIGN Retrospective study. SETTING University teaching hospital, Hong Kong. PATIENTS Consecutive patients from March 2006 to April 2007 who had central venous catheter insertion for haemodialysis in our centre were included in this historically controlled study. In all, 75 patients had catheters with heparin solution alone and 74 had catheters with a gentamicin antibiotic lock. The majority of catheters were non-tunnelled (95%). Cumulative catheter survival free of catheter-related bacteraemia in the two groups was compared. RESULTS Baseline characteristics in the two groups were similar apart from a slightly lower serum albumin level in those with gentamicin locks. There were 18 and five catheter-related bacteraemia episodes before and after recourse to gentamicin antibiotic locks, respectively. Staphylococcus aureus contributed to over half (65%) of the total bacteraemia episodes. Use of gentamicin antibiotic locks significantly reduced catheter-related bacteraemia episodes per 1000 catheter days from 4.6 to 1.5 (P=0.002). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis using the log rank test showed significantly better bloodstream infection-free survival associated with using gentamicin antibiotic locks (P=0.032). A similar survival advantage was associated with gentamicin antibiotic locks when the analysis was restricted to non-tunnelled catheters. There was no significant association of catheter-related bacteraemia with patient age, obesity, gender, baseline serum albumin level, or diabetes mellitus. No serious adverse events were attributable to the use of gentamicin antibiotic locks. CONCLUSION Use of gentamicin lock solutions effectively reduced catheter-related bacteraemia in haemodialysis patients, including those with non-tunnelled catheters.