Validity of urinary catheter specimens for diagnosis of urinary tract infection in patients with short-term catheterization

Current guidelines recommend urine culture after catheter replacement to diagnose catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CA-UTI) in patients with long-term catheters, but it's unclear if this applies to short-term catheterizations. We studied 52 patients with catheters for less than 28 days, showing symptoms of CA-UTI. We collected urine from the catheter port initially and from the new catheter within 2 hours of replacement. Positive culture rates were 36.5 % before and 28.8 % after replacement. Significant differences in urine culture results were observed in 32.7 % of cases postreplacement (P = .0184), increasing to 78.9 % after excluding negative pre-replacement cultures (P = 0.0003). Duration of catheterization didn't affect urine bacteriology changes post-replacement. This suggests that urine bacteriology often differs after catheter replacement in short-term catheterizations.