Affiliations: Biomedical Engineering Department, Sathyabama
University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Note: [] Address for correspondence: Sriram Sankar, New NO41, F3
Ramanalayam, Alarmelumangapuram, Mylapore, Chennai-600004, India. Tel.: +91 44
24620056; E-mail: sriram8587@gmail.com
Abstract: Urinary catherization is a routine procedure in an intensive care
unit (ICU) for monitoring the urine output of critically ill patients. The
catheters which are most often used to help with urinary incontinence and
retention also face problems like blockage, leakage and infection. These
problems are due to proteins that adhere to the catheter surface and quickly
build up on each other forming a protein layer. As the layers build up they can
crystallize, providing the major source of blockage and leakage. Current
strategies to avoid these problems include coating a catheter with silver alloy
to reduce bacteria on the catheter surface. However, silver alloy coatings can
lead to increased silver resistance for bacteria. Since silver is already used
as an antibacterial agent in many places in a hospital, it is even more
possible that resistance can develop. An alternative solution is presented
involving coating latex, a common urinary catheter material with a micro layer
(5–100 microns) of polyethylene glycol. This hydrogel is applied using an
interfacial photopolymerizatoin process with ethyl eosin as the
photoinitiator. A 25 ppm concentration of ethyl eosin provided the strongest gel
to surface adhesion and significantly lowered protein adhesion when compared to
an uncoated latex substrate.
