CLINICAL UTILITY OF IV CATHETER TIP CULTURES FOR SHORT TERM LINES

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Culture of intravenous catheter tips has been a routine practice for the last ten years. Based on the findings of Maki et al, a quantitative technique based on rolling the tip on a blood agar plate and counting the resulting number of colonies has been a "standard" practice used by our laboratory as well as most other laboratories. The validity and value of these cultures has come into increasing debate, but little well documented data has been published to clarify this issue. As part of a larger line maintenance CCM department protocol, our study will utilize these patients to look at colony counts and their predictive value in determining line sepsis from short term central lines. Organisms will be saved, so that catheter isolates and blood isolates can be compared by molecular epidemiological techniques to determine if they are the same or different strains.