'Lansley must listen to nurses on the front line' 
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- Can silver alloy catheters reduce infection rates?
- Michelle Beattie is lecturer, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health, University of Stirling.
Key points
- Patients with urinary catheters are at high risk of infection.
- Catheters reduce the body’s natural ability to cleanse the urinary tract of micro organisms.
- Bacteria can be free floating or can colonise into biofilms that attach to the catheter surface and may cause catheter blockage.
- Biofilms can develop a resistance to antibiotics.
- Silver alloy urinary catheters can reduce biofilm formation and colonisation by releasing silver ions into the urinary tract.
Let’s discuss
- Why does catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) remain a persistent challenge in healthcare?
- What strategies have you found to be effective in reducing CAUTI?
- Looking at the evidence in this article, do you think silver alloy catheters should be used routinely in clinical practice?
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Readers' comments (2)
Ann Shuttleworth | 27-Jul-2011 5:07 pm
Having edited more articles on CAUTI than I care to remember, it seems that healthcare providers are often far more keen to catheterise patients than to remove catheters. Is this because there is a perception that catheters save time or the lack of a system to ensure patients' need to remain catheterised is regularly checked?
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Anonymous | 28-Jul-2011 4:22 pm
Silver lined Intra Ventricular Drains/catheters have been proved to reduce infections, so why not in Urinary Catheters also?
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