Line days as a determinant of central line-associated bloodstream infections in pediatric patients with tunneled femoral peripherally inserted central catheters

Ultrasound (US)-guided tunneled femoral peripherally inserted central catheters (PICCs) are a safe central venous access option in infants and neonates. Studies have shown, however, that femoral central venous access has the potential for high central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) rates with a significant increase in risk around line day 30, though no studies have evaluated these risks exclusively for tunneled femoral PICCs.

The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between line duration and the risk of CLABSI in tunneled femoral PICCs in children.

Four hundred forty-five patients (196 females, 249 males; median age: 49.4 days; median weight: 3.7 kg) who underwent 573 tunneled femoral PICC placements or exchanges from Jan. 1, 2017, to Jan. 31, 2020, were included in the study. All tunneled femoral PICCs were placed using US technique and catheter specifications, including catheter size (French) and length (cm), were retrieved from the electronic medical record. The location of the PICC placement, the number of lumens, the laterality of placement, and the patient’s age and weight were also recorded. Only non-mucosal barrier injury CLABSIs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) definitions, were counted as CLABSI for this study. The number of central line days until a CLABSI event was analyzed with an accelerated failure time model using the exponential, Weibull, and log-normal distributions to determine the probability of a CLABSI over time, taking into consideration the recorded covariates.

Tunneled femoral PICC placements accounted for 14,855 line days, during which 20 non-mucosal barrier injury CLABSIs (CLABSI rate of 1.35 per 1,000 line days) occurred during the study period. The highest CLABSI rate occurred in PICCs placed in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at 2.01 per 1,000 line days and the lowest occurred in PICCs placed in interventional radiology at 0.26 per 1,000 line days. Overall, PICCs placed outside of interventional radiology had a CLABSI rate of 1.72 per 1,000 line days. The CLABSI rate during the first 30 days a line was in situ was lower than the rate after 30 days (0.51 per 1,000 line days vs. 3.06 per 1,000 line days, respectively). Statistical modeling and hazard estimation using the Akaike information criterion corrected for small sample size (AICc)-average of log-normal, Weibull and exponential distributions demonstrate the daily risk of CLABSI rapidly increases from day 1 to day 30, with the risk remaining high for the duration of line days.

While tunneled femoral PICCs are a relatively safe and effective central venous access alternative, the rate of CLABSI appears to rapidly increase with increasing line days until around day 30 and then remains high thereafter.