Ethanol lock therapy is a novel technique that is being studied for its efficacy in eradicating catheter related bloodstream infections. A systematic review of interdisciplinary studies from CINAHL, Medline, Academic Search Premier, Biological Abstracts, and Web of Knowledge databases was performed. This meta-analysis examined the findings of thirty-five studies on ethanol lock therapy. Twenty-six of these studies compared ethanol to a placebo and nine studies performed a direct comparison of ethanol to other agents frequently used in antimicrobial lock technique. Ethanol lock therapy was shown to be effective as both a prophylactic therapy and as an active treatment in eradicating biofilms of organisms that frequently cause catheter-related blood stream infections, including Staphylococcus epidermis, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumonia, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, E. coli, and Candida albicans. Ethanol has been shown to have a synergistic effect with several other antimicrobial agents. The majority of studies examined in this thesis have found that ethanol has equal or greater efficacy to several antibiotic and antimicrobial agents used in practice and should therefore be considered for the treatment of catheter-related blood stream infections.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:honorstheses1990-2015-2244 |
| Date | 01 May 2012 |
| Creators | Anderson, Breanna |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | HIM 1990-2015 |
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