ASN's Mission

To create a world without kidney diseases, the ASN Alliance for Kidney Health elevates care by educating and informing, driving breakthroughs and innovation, and advocating for policies that create transformative changes in kidney medicine throughout the world.

learn more

Contact ASN

1401 H St, NW, Ste 900, Washington, DC 20005

email@asn-online.org

202-640-4660

The Latest on X

Kidney Week

Abstract: TH-PO870

Evaluating Bacterial Flush Efficiency and Touch Contamination Across 3 Different Twinbag Systems

Session Information

  • Peritoneal Dialysis - I
    November 02, 2017 | Location: Hall H, Morial Convention Center
    Abstract Time: 10:00 AM - 10:00 AM

Category: Dialysis

  • 608 Peritoneal Dialysis

Authors

  • Straka, Paul, Baxter Healthcare Corporation, Deerfield, Illinois, United States
  • Sloand, James A., Baxter Healthcare Corporation, Deerfield, Illinois, United States
Background

Peritonitis is a significant complication of peritoneal dialysis (PD). PD system design to reduce touch contamination by at-home PD patients is critical in reducing peritonitis risk. Impact of connection-design differences on contaminant flush efficiency among three different Twinbag CAPD system was assessed by examining differences in the amount of bacteria entering the fluid path under worse case touch contamination.

Methods

3 studies were performed: A1, A2, and B, with details as follows: A1) Touch contamination at the transfer set connector adapter (TSCA) and the patient connector adapter (PCA) ends, each connector quantified. A2) Touch contamination simulated as in A1, connected and flushed to quantify the bacteria transferred into the fluid path. B) Known levels of bacterial contamination were inoculated into the fluid path, performed CAPD procedure and quantified the patient infusion fluid. Three different commercially available PD delivery systems (System 1, 2, 3) were tested using the above (27 times over a 4 day period) that differed in location of the frangible, the Y-configuration and the size of the shrouds (short: Camex; long: Hytrel) on the PCA.

Results

For touch contamination evaluation (A1), the TSCA had a significant (p-values <0.0001) lower mean bacterial level compared to the PCA. For touch contamination evaluation (A2), system 2 had a significantly higher mean count than systems 1 and 3 (p-value <0.001). For the flush efficiency evaluation (B), the three systems were compared within each day. There were no significant differences in the mean log base 10 values among the three systems within days 1, 3 and 4 (p-values ≥0.05). For day 2, system 3 mean was significantly higher than system 2 mean (p-value = 0.0031).

Conclusion

Touch contamination studies show that when contaminated, the smaller surface area of the TSCA when compared to the PCA resulted in lower bacterial counts. Despite what would appear as a more protective design, the deeply recessed Hytrel shroud resulted in significantly higher bacterial transfer into the fluid path than the shallow recessed Camex shroud. These differences are immaterial given no difference between “Flush before Fill” efficiency of the 3 systems, irrespective of frangible location or asymmetric Y position. This highlights the importance of redundancy in connection design features to reduce PD touch contamination.