Molecular investigation of bacterial communities on the inner and outer surfaces of peripheral venous catheters

Abstract

Peripheral venous catheters (PVCs) are some of the most widely used medical devices in hospitals worldwide. PVC-related infections increase morbidity and treatment costs. The inner surfaces of PVCs are rarely examined for the population structure of bacteria, as it is generally believed that bacteria at this niche are similar to those on the external surface of PVCs. We primarily test this hypothesis and also study the effect of antibiotic treatment on bacterial communities from PVC surfaces. The inner and outer surfaces of PVCs from 15 patients were examined by 454 GS FLX Titanium 16S rRNA sequencing and the culture method. None of the PVCs were colonised according to the culture method and none of the patients had a bacteraemia. From a total of 127,536 high-quality sequence reads, 14 bacterial phyla and 268 diverse bacterial genera were detected. The number of operational taxonomic units for each sample was in the range of 86-157, even though 60 % of patients had received antibiotic treatment. Stenotrophomonas maltophilia was the predominant bacterial species in all the examined PVC samples. There were noticeable but not statistically significant differences between the inner and outer surfaces of PVCs in terms of the distribution of the taxonomic groups. In addition, the bacterial communities on PVCs from antibiotic-treated patients were significantly different from untreated patients. In conclusion, the surfaces of PVCs display complex bacterial communities. Although their significance has yet to be determined, these findings alter our perception of PVC-related infections.

Molecular Comparison of Bacterial Communities on Peripheral Intravenous Catheters and Matched Skin Swabs

“…The overall bacterial diversity observed in this study was less than that reported in other studies [ 17 , 31 ]. The samples in the study were taken from patients under clinical care, including use of 2% chlorhexidine gluconate in alcohol, to decontaminate skin sites prior to PIVC insertion.…”

“…Methylobacterium spp., was the dominant genera on both the PIVC tips and skin swabs. This contrasts to other studies which have reported Stenotrophomonas spp., as the major species recovered from PIVCs [ 17 ], and Staphylococcus spp. and Corynebacterium spp., as the major species recovered from skin [ 13 ].…”

“…Finally, only 20 samples from 10 patients were included in this study. Previous studies that used 15–30 PICV samples detected both quantitative and qualitative differences of bacterial community [ 16 , 17 ]. Given the large number of bacterial species present of the skin, and variation in populations, a larger study may provide more detailed resolution of bacterial composition on the PIVC tip and associated skin swab samples.…”

“…PIVC tips, including PIVC controls (unused sterile PIVCs) in 1.5ml microcentrifuge tubes containing 1ml PBS were briefly sonicated and vortexed [ 17 ]. After removal of the PIVCs, the bacterial suspension was re-centrifuged and pellet suspended in 100μl PBS.…”

Clinical Implications of Circulating Microbiome in Cardiovascular Disease Patients

“…The bacterial growth leads to separation between valve and tissue resulting in paravalvular leakage [72,73]. Peripheral venous catheter (PVC) infections [74] and central venous catheter (CVC) infections [75] mostly result in IE.…”