Background: The Surgical Care Improvement Project 9 (SCIP 9) mandates the removal of urinary catheters within 48 hours following surgery to reduce the risk of catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs). Although patients with thoracic epidurals are not exempt from SCIP 9, these patients may be inherently different from other surgical patients. Early removal of Foley catheters may cause urinary retention and recatheterization, which in turn can lead to CAUTI or urethral trauma. Our hospital’s current policy is to allow Foley catheters to remain in place until the thoracic epidural is removed. The goal of our study was to identify and compare the rate of CAUTI in patients with thoracic epidural catheters to the rate of CAUTI in patients without thoracic epidural catheters Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study of patients with and without thoracic epidurals who had Foley catheters during hospitalization from July 1, 2017, to May 31, 2019. We used descriptive statistics to compare CAUTI rates based on unit between the 2 groups of patients. Results: We identified 1,834 unique patients with thoracic epidurals and urinary catheters during the study period. We found 4 CAUTIs of 9,896 catheter days (0.4 CAUTIs per 1,000 catheter days) in patients with epidural catheters and 43 CAUTIs of 36,809 catheter days (1.17 CAUTI per 1,000 catheter days) in patients without thoracic epidurals for a rate ratio of 0.346 (95% CI, 0.1242– 0.9639; P < .03). We conducted a sensitivity analysis on a subset of patients admitted under the cardiothoracic service and compared the patients with Foley catheters with and without thoracic epidurals. In this subset, we found 1 CAUTI in 5,890 catheter days (0.17 CAUTI per 1,000 catheter days) in patients with thoracic epidurals and 4 CAUTIs in 9,429 catheter days (0.42 CAUTIs per 1,000 catheter days) in patients without thoracic epidurals), for a rate of 0.4002 (95% CI, 0.0447–3.5808; P < .39). In this subgroup, 7.0% of patients with thoracic epidurals required a second Foley catheter compared to 16.9% of patients without thoracic epidurals who required a second Foley catheter (P < .01). Conclusions: Although patients with thoracic epidurals maintain Foley catheters beyond 48 hours, the CAUTI rate in these patients is lower than in patients without thoracic epidurals. Therefore, removing Foley catheters within 48 hours of surgery in patients with thoracic epidurals may not reduce the risk of CAUTI and, in fact, could be harmful. Further evaluation of confounding variables is warranted.

Funding: None

Disclosures: None