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kokotis
blood culture thru a catheter

Kathy Kokotis

Bard Access Systems  

Question of the day:

If one suspects a CR-BSI and one has a multi-lumen catheter would not one draw a blood c/s from each lumen and label the c/s samples as one lumen may be infected and the other two not infected?

I have looked for an article to substantiate that.  Hadaway where are you

Kokotis

lynncrni
I have never seen a study

I have never seen a study that looked at the culture results from multiple lumens. I makes sense to think that a sample from only one of 2 or 3 lumens could easily result in missing an infected catheter, but don't recall any articles that discuss this.  

 

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

momdogz
We've discussed this with ID

We've discussed this with ID and IC at our facility, and are in agreement although we currently haven't changed our practice and also don't have data.  I remember reading other conjectures that this might be a good idea, but don't remember where I read it.  If I find it and it's useful, I'll post.

Because such a large volume of blood would be drawn to get cultures if one bottle were drawn from each lumen, from a triple lumen catheter for example, would it make more sense to use a separate sterile syringe to draw a partial sample from each lumen and put all in one bottle?  Or would it be useful to know exactly which lumen the positive culture came from? or the contaminant came from?

Mari Cordes, BS RN 

Nurse Educator IV Therapy
Fletcher Allen Health Care, Burlington VT
Educator, Bard Access Systems 

Mari Cordes, BS RNIII VA-BC
Vascular Access Department
University of Vermont Medical Center

lynncrni
Very good questions, but

Very good questions, but don't know if the IC experts have considered this yet. If one lumen is positive, then pulling or treating is indicated. If one lumen is positive, I would tend to think that treating all lumens would be necessary if pulling the catheter is not an option. But again, I don't know of any evidence about this.  

 

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

kokotis
Kathy Kokotis Bard Access

Kathy Kokotis

Bard Access Systems

The reason I brought this up is Jackson in Miami draws from each lumen and labels each culture with the lumen and it just made so much sense to me and I realized that this is not the common or documented practice in the industry nor do we discuss it but it makes sense

kathy

Kathy Kokotis

Bard Access Systems

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