In vitro efficacy of a Hydrophilic Central Venous Catheter Loaded with Silver to Prevent Microbial Colonization

A method was developed to load the surface of a central venous catheter with silver to prevent bacterial colonization. Silver confers a broad antimicrobial activity with a relatively low risk of resistance. Catheters were incubated with a silver nitrate solution in different concentrations. The solvent, incubation temperature and incubation period were varied to examine the influence on the catheter loading. With increasing incubation temperature, time and concentration of silver nitrate, higher rates of silver elution were observed by atomic absorption spectroscopy. Furthermore, by using ethanol-water as a solvent instead of pure water, the amount of silver bound to the catheter surface wa…