Lower catheter-related bloodstream infection in arterial than in venous femoral catheter

In previous studies no differences were found in catheter-related bloodstream infection (CRBSI) between arterial and venous catheters. However, the distribution of each venous and arterial site could influence the results as in some studies a higher CRBSI incidence in venous and arterial femoral accesses has been found than in other venous and arterial accesses. Possibly, to eliminate this confounding, it might be more appropriate to compare the CRBSI incidence between arterial and venous catheters in the same site as the femoral access. Thus, the objective of this study was to compare the incidence of CRBSI between 618 arterial and 288 venous femoral accesses. We found higher CRBSI incidence in venous than in arterial femoral catheters (8.34 vs 1.92 CRBSI episodes/1,000 catheter-days; P < 0.001). Exact logistic regression analysis showed that venous femoral catheters had a higher risk of CRBSI than arterial femoral catheters (OR = 1.02; 95%CI =1.01-infinite; P < 0.001) controlled by APACHE-II score and duration of the catheter. The novel finding of our study is that the risk of CRBSI was higher in venous than in arterial femoral catheters. Thus, special approaches to prevent CRBSI might play a more important role in venous than in arterial catheters.