Reuse versus single-use catheters for intermittent catheterization: what is safe and preferred? Review of current status
Bibliographic record
Abstract
STUDY DESIGN: This is a narrative review summarizing prevalence and background of reusing catheters for intermittent catheterization. It also compares complications related to reuse versus single use. OBJECTIVES AND SETTING: The objective of the review is to highlight the on-going debate regarding whether reuse of catheters is as safe as single-use technique and investigate why reuse is common in some countries (for example, Australia, Canada and the United States). METHODS: The review is the result of systematic searches in several databases (for example, MEDLINE, EMBASE and CINAHL) using predefined key words and search strategy. RESULTS: The literature does not explicitly recommend reuse but instead proposes patient-oriented choice. Even so, the prevalence of reuse is ∼50% in some regions. Both off-label reuse and reuse of catheters intended for multiple use occur. The former is not legally supported. There seems to be no consensus on how many times a catheter can be reused or how to clean it. Poor compliance and efficacy of cleaning techniques have been reported, increasing the risk for introducing bacterial contamination. The literature supports the use of single-use hydrophilic catheters to reduce the risk of urethral trauma and urinary tract infection with a reported incidence of the latter between 40 and 60%, as compared with 70-80% for reuse catheters. Further clinical studies are however needed to verify/reject a difference. CONCLUSION: Complications associated with reuse need to be further investigated. Although awaiting evidence, it is recommended to use a confirmed safe, patient-preferred, noninfecting and nontraumatic technique for intermittent catheterization.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.008 | 0.051 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.008 | 0.009 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".