Evaluate the Safety in Human Subjects of Using Bladder Catheters That Are Pre-Coated With a Biofilm That Contains Living Bacteria Escherichia Coli 83972.

The overall goal of this project is to develop a new approach for the prevention of urinary tract infection (UTI) in persons who rely on indwelling catheters for bladder drainage. Veterans with spinal cord injury (SCI) frequently require chronic bladder catheterization. Most individuals with SCI have neurogenic bladders, and the resulting urinary stasis and bladder catheterization predispose them to recurrent UTI.1 The presence of a urinary catheter dramatically increases the risk of UTI, not only through contamination of the urinary tract during catheter changes, but also by the presence of a foreign body in the urethra and bladder. Implanted urinary catheters rapidly acquire a complex, three-dimensional biofilm composed of bacteria, their extracellular products, and components deposited from bodily fluids. The pathogenic organisms in a biofilm continually seed the bladder, leading to bacteriuria and/or UTI.2 Bacterial interference, or using benign bacteria to prevent infection with virulent pathogens,3, 4 may offer a solution to the significant problem of recurrent episodes of UTI in persons with indwelling catheters. Since biofilm formation on a wet implanted device such as a urinary catheter is nearly impossible to prevent,5, 6 we propose instead to manipulate the adherent microbial flora. We propose that inserting urinary catheters than have been pre-inoculated with a benign strain of Escherichia coli (83972) will be an efficient means to colonize the neurogenic bladder with this harmless organism. If successful colonization is achieved in this pilot trial, a larger clinical trial will be designed to test the efficacy of this approach to prevent bladder colonization by pathogenic organisms and thus to prevent UTI.