2013 Volume 9 Issue 1 Pages 1-8
It has been widely practiced in home care to store used catheters in dry and clean container without dipping in disinfectant solution between uses. However, bacterial amount and species in sputum or diameter of suction catheter might influence the number of residual bacteria on suction catheter. Thus, the authors compared the number of remaining bacteria in the catheters (8 and 14Fr diameter) stored in a dry condition after suctioning using mock sputum that was artificially contaminated with different amounts of S. aureus, P. aeruginosa, A. baumanni, or S. marcescens.
The number of remaining bacteria increased as the bacterial amount of sputum increased. The number of residual bacteria almost unchanged during storage in regardless of the amount of bacteria. The number of S. aureus remained at 6 hr after suctioning of mock sputum of 107/mL and 108/mL was approximately 102CFU. In P. aeruginosa, the number of residual bacteria decreased with time in all amount of bacteria when the catheter of 14Fr was used. However, the number of residual bacteria almost unchanged throughout storage when the catheter of 8Fr was used and bacteria of about 103CFU remained even after 6hr especially when mock sputum of 108/mL was suctioned. In A. baumannii and S. marcescens, the number of residual bacteria decreased with time although more bacteria remained when the catheter with narrow diameter was used.
These findings suggest that suction catheters should be changed more frequently or be disinfected when home care patients have active respiratory infections in cases where small suction catheters are used as with children. It is necessary to consider the way of storage of suction catheter flexibly depending on patient situations.
