Antimicrobial Agent Incorporation for Preventing Bacterial Adhesion

Abstract

Medical devices are indispensable in the modern care of patients. Despite adherence to sterile guidelines for the insertion and maintenance of medical devices, infection remains the most common serious complication of indwelling medical devices. Infections related to medical devices account for nearly half of all nosocomial infections.35 The contribution of medical devices to nosocomial infection is particularly prominent with certain devices, such as vascular and urinary catheters. For instance, vascular catheters account for most cases of nosocomial bloodstream infections,24 and catheter-related urinary tract infection is the most common nosocomial infection in health care institutions.35 In addition to causing serious medical complications, infection of medical devices is very expensive to manage. For instance, the extra cost of treating one episode of catheter-related bloodsteam infection in a critically ill patient was estimated to be $28,690 per survivor, and each such episode resulted in an additional average stay of 6.5 d in the intensive care unit.23