[An infection study of total parenteral nutrition catheters for Y-site drug administration]

When faced with the frequent use of parenteral nutrition (TPN) and the multiple problems which the maintenance of venous pathways presents, we initiated this study to try and show that the use of TPN catheters for the perfusion of drugs in "Y", does ot increase the incidence of infection. 70 patients subjected to TPN were studied, divided into 3 groups: I: TPN with exclusive use catheter (23 patients). II: TPN with a catheter through which antibiotic medication is administered in "Y" (22 patients). III: TPN with a catheter through which non-antibiotic medication is administered in "Y" (25 patients). Despite there being no extra manipulation in group I, when applying Cramer's "Y" we did not find any significant differences between the three groups as to incidence of infection. When relating the variables of infection and number of manipulations by means of chi-squared, we did not find significant differences either. There is no increase in the incidence of infection with the increase of manipulation. When we relate the variables of infection and number of days of treatment with TPN by chi-squared, we did not find significant differences either. There were no more infections of the catheters with more days of treatment. Neither did we find significant differences with respect to the number of manipulations, according to the calculation done by the Student T-rest, between groups II and III. Therefore, we have reached the conclusion that although the use of TPN for the administration of other drugs should not be used indiscriminately, it is absolutely valid for concrete cases, with a difficulty of multiple venolysis, as long as the drugs that shall be administered are stable with TPN and as a long as the norms form the correct administration and the aseptic techniques are observed.