[Dr.Vad]

Treatment of shunt infections is inevitably a lengthy process that involves week to month-long admissions in the hospital. After the infected shunt is removed, an external ventricular drain (EVD) must be placed while intravenous antibiotics are administered. The EVD must then remain in place until the infection is cleared and a new shunt can safely be implanted. This process requires admission in the hospital and often in the intensive care unit throughout the duration of therapy. Therefore, efforts to develop means of preventing shunt infections are of upmost importance to cut costs and reduce morbidity. Antibiotic impregnated catheters are one example of a strategy to prevent shunt infections from occurring. Raffa et al. (2015) studied the incidence of shunt infections in a group of pediatric patients younger than one year and found that the infection rate in the group with antibiotic impregnated shunts was 9% while that in the group with standard shunt catheters was 34% [25]. Although the results of some studies have failed to demonstrate a statistically significant reduction in the incidence of infection with antibiotic impregnated catheters [26,27], cost analysis models implementing the results from the literature suggest that their use may amount to fewer deaths, fewer hospital days, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of net savings in hospital costs [28].

Ventriculoperitoneal shunt complications: A review
[Ссылки доступны только зарегистрированным пользователям ]