Catheter-Associated Infection Prevention Strategies

Catheter-associated infections represent a major burden in both acute and long-term care settings, driven largely by microbial biofilm formation on device surfaces. Prevention strategies span minimising catheter use and duration, optimising insertion and maintenance protocols, and innovating materials and surface treatments that resist microbial adhesion, encrustation and colonisation. Recent efforts have focused on synergising chemical and physical approaches—such as antifouling topographies, antimicrobial coatings and host-instructive polymers—with rigorous behavioural interventions and surveillance to reduce infection incidence. Understanding polymicrobial interactions, improving quantification of biofilm loads and addressing global antimicrobial resistance are central to translating laboratory advances into safer, more effective catheter designs and clinical guidelines.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have characterised the complex microbial co-occurrences on long-term urinary catheters, revealing recurrent associations between species such as Escherichia coli and Enterococcus faecalis that enhance mutual growth in catheter environments. These insights highlight potential targets for disrupting positive co-associations to collapse established polymicrobial communities. Complementing these ecological investigations, a standardised extraction and quantification method for biofilm bacteria on indwelling catheters has been validated across catheter sizes and in animal models. This reproducible approach combines vortexing and sonication to provide accurate measures of total and polymicrobial biofilm burdens, facilitating systematic evaluation of novel anti-biofilm technologies.

Catheter-Associated Infection Prevention Strategies publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in catheter-associated infection prevention strategies across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Biofilm: structured community of microorganisms adherent to a surface and embedded in a self-produced polymeric matrix.

Encrustation: deposition of crystalline mineral layers on catheter surfaces that facilitate microbial colonisation and biofilm maturation.

Indwelling catheter: a tube inserted into the body to drain fluids continuously over an extended period, often associated with infection risk.

Antifouling: property of a surface that resists accumulation of microbial cells, proteins and organic debris.

Copolymer: synthetic polymer composed of two or more distinct monomeric units, engineered to combine multiple functional properties.

References

1. Microbial co-occurrences on catheters from long-term catheterized patients. Nature Communications (2024).
2. Extraction and quantification of biofilm bacteria: Method optimized for urinary catheters. Scientific Reports (2018).
3. Discovery of a polymer resistant to bacterial biofilm, swarming, and encrustation. Science Advances (2023).
4. Urinary Catheter Coating Modifications: The Race against Catheter-Associated Infections. Coatings (2019).
5. Reducing catheter-associated urinary tract infections: a systematic review of barriers and facilitators and strategic behavioural analysis of interventions. Implementation Science (2020).