Betadine Bladder Irrigations vs. Standard of Care Prior to Indwelling Catheter Removal

Indwelling urinary catheters are routinely used in the care of hospitalized patients for a variety of reasons, including monitoring of urine output in critically ill patients, relief of urinary obstruction, and prevention of contamination of decubitus ulcers. Bacteriuria increases by 3-10% each day a catheter is left in place, meaning that by 30 days, generally 100% of patients with indwelling catheters will have bacteria in their urine. The majority of these people do not have urinary tract infections (UTIs), they are merely colonized and do not require treatment.

To define a standard (and ultimately to compare hospitals against each other), a surveillance definition for CAUTI has been developed by the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN). While useful for surveillance, the definition does not correlate with clinical UTIs, leading to over diagnosis and over-reporting of UTIs (in other words, those with merely bladder colonization being diagnosed as having a UTI). Despite continuing progress in standard methods of reducing infection rates (including decreasing the number of catheters inserted, ensuring proper catheter maintenance, and removing catheters when no long necessary) there continue to be unacceptably high rates of CAUTIs.

A single dose of povidone-iodine prior to catheter removal seems a novel and promising practice for several reasons. First, we suspect it will be helpful in reducing rates of NHSN defined CAUTI, as these are still diagnosed for 2 days after the catheter is removed. Second, using multiple doses of povidone-iodine would be inadvisable, since we suspect bacteria over time would become resistant even to this antiseptic. Third, we suspect use of an antiseptic is preferable to an antibacterial for preventing further antimicrobial resistance development. Finally, use of this method, as opposed to the suggested use of systemic antibiotics at time of removal, is potentially preferable from the downstream standpoint of less antimicrobial resistance and reduced risk of Clostridium difficile infection.