The potential role of through the needle PIVC insertion in reducing early catheter contamination

Over-the-needle (OTN) PIVC devices are at inherent risk of insertion related skin contamination. Through-the-needle (TTN) catheter deployment resulted in no measurable contamination in this study. OTN catheters were 1.67 times more likely to be contaminated than TTN in this study.

To compare a traditional over-the-needle peripheral intravenous catheter device to a through-the-needle (TTN) peripheral intravenous catheter device for early bacterial contamination during insertion.

Five TTN test devices (OspreyIV 20 g SkyDance Vascular, Inc) and 5 OTN comparative devices (Insyte Autoguard 20 g Becton Dickinson) were aseptically inserted through targeted zones inoculated with 1 mL aliquot suspension of approximately 1 × 10 CFU of Staphylococcus aureus among 3 healthy sheep. Immediately after insertion, each study catheter was surgically removed from the surrounding tissue and cultured for the presence of Staphylococcus aureus inoculum that may have been transferred to the catheter during insertion.

Final culture results of the 5 test articles found no bacterial colonies. Final culture results of the 5 comparative articles revealed 2 of 5 were contaminated with bacterial colonies. The absolute risk reduction is 40%, or a 40% rate of contamination drops to a 0% rate of contamination when the TTN catheter deployment was used. The risk ratio achieved was 1.67, indicating catheters placed using the OTN deployment were 1.67 times more like to be contaminated than the TTN deployed catheters.

In this present ovine study, the data revealed that use of a novel TTN approach resulted in less contamination than the more traditional OTN approach. Traditional OTN devices, developed over 70 years ago, are at inherent risk of insertion-related contact contamination. The results of this research, as well as previously published studies, point toward considering physical catheter protection strategies such as TTN devices as a potential alternative to OTN devices.