Setting up a urinary catheter evaluation model and optimizing its usage

Catheter-associated Urinary Tract Infections (CAUTI) is a type of hospital-acquired infection. It is mainly caused by the bacterial biofilm formation on the urinary catheters. Bacterial species can either be introduced into patient’s bladder during insertion, or can already be present before the ins...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Seah, Wei Lian
Other Authors: Chan Bee Eng, Mary
Format: Final Year Project
Language:English
Published: 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10356/75158
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
Description
Summary:Catheter-associated Urinary Tract Infections (CAUTI) is a type of hospital-acquired infection. It is mainly caused by the bacterial biofilm formation on the urinary catheters. Bacterial species can either be introduced into patient’s bladder during insertion, or can already be present before the insertion. Even though preventive methods such as aseptic insertion and maintaining closed drainage system are used, CAUTI occurrence remains the highest among the different nosocomial infections. Currently, antibacterial coated catheters are used in combination with the other preventive measures, but are increasingly ineffective due to the evolving bacterial resistance to antibiotics. Other forms of coating are also being explored to find new effective solutions to CAUTI. Poly(sulfobetaine methacrylate) (pSBMA) antifouling property makes it an attractive polymeric surface coat to be explored. However, having a model which replicates clinical catheterization conditions, for the evaluation of newly innovated coated catheters, is as important as innovating new coatings. For this project, an in-vitro catheterization model (IVCM) and its experimental methods were studied to assemble similar models. The assembled models were used to evaluate the effectiveness of pSBMA coated catheters. Throughout the project, changes were made to the set-up for optimization.