Catheter Related
Bloodstream Infections:
Patient Basics
By Michael Allon , M.D. Department of Medicine, Division of Nephrology ,
The University of Alabama at Birmingham
More than 1.5 million people around the world are treated with hemodialysis, a procedure that involves
filtering the blood to remove wastes, extra salt and water when the kidneys cannot perform
these functions. For these people, hemodialysis is a lifesaving procedure. At the same
time, it is important to be aware of preventable complications that can compromise
the health of kidney patients like catheter related bloodstream infections. Dialysis
patients are over 100 times more likely than other people to get a bloodstream
infection from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a common antibiotic
resistant bacteria 1 , so it’s worthwhile to learn more about these infections and
how they happen.
Catheters frequently have bacteria coating their inside
surface. From time to time, the bacteria inside the
catheter are released into the patient’s bloodstream
causing serious infection. Every time a kidney patient
comes to dialysis, they have to expose the catheter to
the skin and needles. Each time there is the possibility of
introducing an infection into the catheter, and this happens
three times a week. The longer you have the catheter, the greater
the risk of infection.
These infections can be small nuisances or become life threatening if
allowed to spread throughout the body. Twenty-one to thirty-one percent of
hemodialysis patients with certain bloodstream infections can develop complications
such as an infected heart valve (endocarditis) or bone infection (osteomyelitis) 2 . Patients
with an S. aureus infection could require hospitalization for an average of 9-13 days.2
1 https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2013/p0513-dialysis-infections.html
2 http://www.cdc.gov/dialysis/PDFs/collaborative/Intro-to-cdc-dialysis-collabroative.pdf
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