Do topical antibiotics reduce exit site infection rates and peritonitis episodes in peritoneal dialysis patients? The Pan Thames Renal Audit.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Peritonitis is the major cause of peritoneal dialysis (PD) technique failure. Prophylactic topical antibiotics have been reported to reduce peritoneal dialysis catheter exit site infections (ESI) and peritonitis rates.
METHODS: We audited the effect of different exit site practices in the 12 Pan Thames and South East England PD centres, on ESIs and peritonitis between 2005 and 2008.
RESULTS: PD patients used prophylactic mupirocin (n=1,270), gentamicin (n=502) and no prophylactic antibiotics (n=1,203); annualised ESI rates were reduced with mupirocin (median 0.18, interquartile range [IQR] 0.13-0.23, patient episodes per year, vs. median 0.32, IQR 0.24-0.69, for no antibiotic prophylaxis, p<0.01). Gentamicin treatment was not significantly lower (median 0.29, IQR 0.21-0.47). Staphylococcal ESIs accounted for 39.6% in the no antibiotic group and fell to 25.7% with mupirocin and 28.2% with gentamicin. Despite the reduction in ESIs, there was no significant reduction in peritonitis rates (no antibiotics: median 0.56, IQR 0.5-0.65; mupirocin: median 0.55, IQR 0.53-0.75; and gentamicin: median 0.47, IQR 0.32-0.65). In particular, mupirocin did not reduce Staphylococcus aureus peritonitis rates.
CONCLUSIONS: Topical antibiotics have been reported to reduce both ESI and peritonitis rates in controlled trials, and although in this audit of routine clinical practice, topical mupirocin did reduce overall ESI rates and both mupirocin and gentamicin reduced S. aureus ESIs, neither reduced overall peritonitis rates.