Preventive effect of bladder irrigation with benzalkonium chloride on catheter-related inferior urethral infection

Objective: To investigate the preventive effect of bladder irrigation with benzalkonium chloride on catheter-related inferior urethral infection in patients with urethral catheter. Methods: Thirty patients with urethral catheter for more than 3 days were assigned to either control group or observation group according to their admission number.Patients in control group were irrigated with 0.02% nitrofurazone while those in observation group were irrigated with 0.002 5% benzalkonium chloride.Urine bacterial culture and routine urine test were used to detect the bacteria at different time points. Results: Five and nine days after bladder irrigation,the number of white blood cells in urine was significantly decreased in the observation group.The positive rate of urine bacterial culture was higher in the control group than in the observation group（P＜0.01）. Conclusion: Bladder irrigation with benzalkonium chloride is tolerable and can prevent and alleviate catheter-related lower urinary tract infection.