of Intensive Care, Hospital Universitario de Canarias, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain Unit, Hospital Universitario de Canarias, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain Corresponding author: Leonardo Lorente, lorentemartin@ Received: 23 Dec 2005 Revisions requested: 7 Feb 2006 Revisions received: 10 Apr 2006 Accepted: 25 Apr 2006 Published: 24 May 2006 Critical Care 2006, 10:R83 (doi:) This article is online at: © 2006 Lorente et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any. | Available online http content 10 3 R83 Research Arterial catheter-related infection of 2 949 catheters Leonardo Lorente1 Ruth Santacreu1 María M Martín1 Alejandro Jimenez2 and María L Mora1 Department of Intensive Care Hospital Universitario de Canarias Santa Cruz de Tenerife Spain 2Research Unit Hospital Universitario de Canarias Santa Cruz de Tenerife Spain Corresponding author Leonardo Lorente lorentemartin@ Received 23 Dec 2005 Revisions requested 7 Feb 2006 Revisions received 10 Apr 2006 Accepted 25 Apr 2006 Published 24 May 2006 Critical Care 2006 10 R83 doi cc4930 This article is online at http content 10 3 R83 2006 Lorente et al. licensee BioMed Central Ltd This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http licenses by which permits unrestricted use distribution and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. Open Access Abstract Introduction Which particular arterial catheter site is associated with a higher risk of infection remains controversial. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines of 1996 and the latest guidelines of 2002 make no recommendation about which site or sites minimize the risk of catheter-related infection. The objective of the present study was to analyze the incidence of catheter-related local infection CRLI and catheter-related bloodstream infection CRBSI of arterial catheters according to different access sites. Methods We performed a prospective observational study of all consecutive patients admitted to the 24 bed medical and surgical intensive care unit of a 650 bed university hospital during three years 1 May 2000 to 30 April 2003 . Results A total of 2 018 patients was admitted to the intensive care unit during the study period. The number of arterial catheters the number of days of arterial catheterization the number of CRLIs and the number of CRBSIs were as .
