The microbiological and clinical outcome of guide wire exchanged versus newly inserted antimicrobial surface treated central venous catheters

The management of suspected central venous catheter (CVC)-related sepsis by guide wire exchange (GWX) is not recommended. However, GWX for new antimicrobial surface treated (AST) triple lumen CVC s has never been studied. We aimed to compare the microbiological outcome of triple lumen AST CVC s inserted by GWX (GWX-CVC s) with newly inserted triple lumen AST CVC s (NI-CVC s). Methods: We studied a cohort of 145 consecutive patients with GWX-CVC s and contemporaneous site-matched control cohort of 163 patients with a NI-CVC s in a tertiary intensive care unit (ICU). Results: GWX-CVC and NI-CVC patients were similar for mean age (58.7 vs. 62.2 years), gender (88 (60.7 ) vs. 98 (60.5 ) male) and illness severity on admission (mean APACHE III: 71.3 vs. 72.2). However, GWX patients had longer median ICU length of stay (12.2 vs. 4.4 days; P