Infection Rates in Standard vs. Hydrogel Coated Ventricular Catheters
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Infection related to external ventricular drain (EVD) use is a common neurosurgical complication. Modified catheters with a hydrophilic surface may impede bacterial adherence and thereby reduce catheter related cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) infection. METHODS: A prospective randomized clinical trial compared the occurrence of CSF infection related to use of either standard silastic or hydrogel coated EVD catheters (Bioglide, Medtronic). Enrolment was available to all adult neurosurgery patients undergoing placement of a first EVD, at three university centers. The catheters were presoaked in a low concentration of bacitracin solution for 5-10 minutes prior to insertion. Bacterial infection was defined by heavy growth in a single CSF sample or light/medium growth in two consecutive samples. A secondary analysis was also conducted for "probable" CSF infection, including patients started on antibiotics after light/medium growth in a single CSF sample. Statistical analyses included Kaplan-Meier survival curve estimates accompanied by Log Rank and Breslow tests. RESULTS: There were 158 randomized patients available to assess for EVD related infection of CSF. The two study groups had similar clinical characteristics including average duration of EVD use (8 +/- 4 days). Definite CSF infection occurred in seven and probable infection in another six (8% total). Infection incidence rose steadily from day 2 (1%) to day 11 (11%). There was no difference of daily occurrence of EVD infection between the two catheter types. CONCLUSIONS: Infection remains a common hazard in the use of EVD, and we found no reduction of infection using the hydrogel-coated catheters when presoaked in low concentration bacitracin solution.
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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 | 0.004 | 0.011 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
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".