Recognizing asymptomatic bacteriuria in the surveillance of catheter-associated urinary tract infections-beyond fever and positive urine culture

Hayato Mitaka; Chloe Bryson-Cahn; Jorge O Estebane; Vanessa A Makarewicz; John B Lynch; Jeannie D Chan

doi:10.1017/ash.2024.459

Recognizing asymptomatic bacteriuria in the surveillance of catheter-associated urinary tract infections-beyond fever and positive urine culture

Antimicrob Steward Healthc Epidemiol. 2024 Nov 14;4(1):e207. doi: 10.1017/ash.2024.459. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Hayato Mitaka¹, Chloe Bryson-Cahn^{1

2}, Jorge O Estebane², Vanessa A Makarewicz², John B Lynch^{1

2}, Jeannie D Chan^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Division of Allergy & Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA.
² Infection Prevention and Control, Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA, USA.
³ Department of Pharmacy, Harborview Medical Center, and University of Washington School of Pharmacy, Seattle, WA, USA.

Abstract

Among 143 cases of National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI), 40% were considered catheter-associated asymptomatic bacteriuria (CA-ASB), and 18% clinical CAUTI. An alternative source of fever was present in 70% of CA-ASB. NHSN CAUTI may not be an effective metric for tracking hospital-level infection prevention efforts.