I have a patient who has had many lines pulled due to infections. She is 52 y/o with a paralyzed bowel and will be on TPN the rest of her life. She also needs other medications IV so always has a double lumen line. We have tried ports and tunneled and non tunneled and antimicrobial catheters.Â
I remember a conference in Anahiem where Dr. Maki spoke about using an alcohol solution to lock the catheter but cannot find anything in the literature. Does anyone know if he wrote this up or if there is an article out there?Â
There is now a lot of published literature about using ethanol in a variety of concentrations to treat CRBSI. You can easily do a lit search or go to the INS website and locate the 3 webinars I gave last year on catheter patency. The third in that series included a lengthy discussion of these alternative flush solutions and there is a long list of references.
Lynn Hadaway, M.Ed., RN, BC, CRNI
www.hadawayassociates.com
Lynn Hadaway, M.Ed., RN, NPD-BC, CRNI
Lynn Hadaway Associates, Inc.
PO Box 10
Milner, GA 30257
Website http://www.hadawayassociates.com
Office Phone 770-358-7861