Central venous catheter infections are common preventable adverse events among hospital patients. Microbes may enter catheter hubs, also known as needleless connectors, and result in downstream contamination. This study aims to compare alcohol disinfection of catheter hubs to disinfection with chlorhexidine gluconate in alcohol, which has been proven to be a superior disinfectant at the site of central venous catheter insertion. Scrub duration of central venous catheter hubs will also be evaluated.

A prospective randomized blinded crossover clinical trial will be performed in the medical intensive care unit at Rush University Medical Center. The intensive care unit will be divided into two regions (A&B). Hub disinfectants and duration of disinfection will be randomly assigned to these regions. After 1/2 of the study period, the agents will crossover, but the duration of scrubbing will remain the same, analogous to a 2 by 2 factorial design. Our primary endpoint will be internal contamination of hubs and catheters.

In February 2012 it was determined that the supplier of chlorhexidine and alcohol pads could not completely blind each pad. It was decided that a plain white sticker would be affixed to the front of each pad, but the safety information on the back of each pad would remain visible.

3/27/12-Internal hub contamination (yes/no)was clarified as the primary outcome.

On 5/10/12 a new sample size calculation adjusted the hub sample size needed to power the main effects based on more accurate information regarding the expected hub contamination rate. The expected hub contamination rate changed because of the more sensitive hub culture method that was adopted before the study began. This more sensitive method also allowed for a new secondary outcome of number of microbial colony forming units per hub.

The first crossover time selected was 6/11/12, prior to the midpoint of the study. This was done to try to improve a large imbalance in the group sizes.

On 6/11/12 a hold was placed on the catheter tip component of the study, because of an inability to collect tips.

On 8/7/12 the catheter tip outcome was dropped because of an inability to collect tips.

On 1/11/13 a second crossover was implemented in an effort to balance the sizes of the study groups.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Medical intensive care unit patients with non-tunneled central venous catheters

Exclusion Criteria:

• Dialysis catheters
• Antibiotic-impregnated catheters
• Introducer sheaths
• Tunneled catheters

Rush University Medical Center adheres to the NIH Grant Policy on Sharing of Unique Research Resources including the Sharing of Biomedical Research Resources Principles and Guidelines for Recipients of NIH Grants and Contracts. Our response to requests for research resources from academic and other non-profit investigators will be timely and will be based on the Simple Letter Agreement for the Transfer of Materials as described in the Guidelines for Disseminating Research Resources Arising Out of NIH-Funded Research (Federal Register, Vol. 64, No 246, p.72094), and will not be more restrictive than the Uniform Biological Materials Transfer Agreement (UBMTA). Any intellectual property resulting from this study that can be patented will remain easily and widely available to the researchers in accordance with the NIH Principles and Guidelines. Distribution of resources to for-profit entities may occur under material transfer agreements or non-exclusive license arrangements.

140 participants, 149 separate MICU admissions, 509 hubs total. Each MICU admission is treated as a separate enrollment.

15 months

• Single MICU
• Large number of eligible hubs not evaluated
• Unbalanced hub collection among study arms
• Studied hub contamination only; unable to collect catheter tips
• Did not study central-line associated bloodstream infection itself