Brief reportEvaluation of patients' skin, environmental surfaces, and urinary catheters as sources for transmission of urinary pathogens
Section snippets
Methods
The Cleveland VA Medical Center Institutional Review Board approved the study protocol. During a 4-month period (July through October 2010), we conducted a prospective study of consecutive inpatients with bacteriuria (>105 colony-forming units of a urinary pathogen per mL of urine) identified in the microbiology laboratory. Medical records review was performed to obtain demographic data and information on medications, signs and symptoms of UTI, and laboratory tests. Patients were considered to
Results
Of the 54 patients with bacteriuria enrolled in this study, 31 (57%) had skin and/or environmental contamination with pathogens concordant with the organism in urine, including 29 (54%) with skin contamination and 19 (35%) with contamination of 1 or more environmental sites. There was no difference in the frequency of skin and/or environmental contamination between patients with UTI (n = 30) and those with ASB (n = 24) (data not shown). Of the 31 patients with a urinary catheter (29 with an
Discussion
In our hospitalized patients with UTI or ASB, urinary pathogens frequently contaminated skin, high-touch environmental surfaces, and urinary catheters. Contamination was significantly more common in patients with urinary catheters and with gram-positive pathogens in urine, and there was a trend toward increased contamination in patients with decreased mobility. These findings provide support for the hypothesis that skin and environmental surfaces of patients with bacteriuria represent an
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2020, American Journal of Infection ControlCitation Excerpt :It is plausible that procedures such as care of wounds, urinary catheters, and ostomies might lead to transfer of colonizing gram-negative bacilli to surfaces by the hands of personnel. In patients with urinary tract infection or asymptomatic bacteriuria, urinary pathogens frequently contaminated nearby high-touch surfaces and the urinary catheter.4 In contrast to the findings of Blanco et al,8 we found that assistance with meals was frequently associated with environmental shedding in our study, whereas assistance with bathing was not.
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2016, Infectious Disease Clinics of North AmericaAsymptomatic bacteriuria and acute-onset endophthalmitis after cataract surgery
2015, Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology
This work was supported by the Department of Veterans Affairs, United States Government and by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Grant R01 C100614-02, to C.J.D.).
Conflict of interest: C.J.D has received research grants from STERIS, Pfizer, and GOJO, and has served on scientific advisory boards for 3M, EcoLab, and GOJO. There are no other conflicts of interest to report.