[Care of the non-tunneled central venous catheter. Literature search on disinfectants, dressings and intervals between dressing changes].

Patient care in hospitals often involves insertion of a non-tunneled central venous catheter for administering drugs, intravenous solutions, or total parenteral nutrition. Every change of dressing must be carried out in an appropriate fashion in order to reduce the risk of bacterial infection. We reviewed the existent literature in order to make a listof recommended disinfectants, type of dressings and intervals between dressing changes of a central venous catheter. A comparison was drawn between the guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Robert Koch-Institut (RKI) issued in 2002 with those more recently published. Our search showed that chlorhexidine gluconate (from 0.5 to 2 percent), povidone-iodine (from 5 to 10 percent) or alcohol (70 percent) are the recommended disinfecting agents. The recommended dressing is gauze or transparent steam-permeable polyurethane dressings. Intervals between dressing changes varied between once a day and once in seven days, depending on the nature of the dressing applied.