Catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) is the commonest hospital-acquired infection, accounting for over 100,000 hospital admissions within the USA annually. Biomaterials and processes intended to reduce the risk of bacterial colonization of the catheters for long-term users have not been successful, mainly because of the need for long duration of activity in flow conditions. Here we report the results of impregnation of urinary catheters with a combination of rifampicin, sparfloxacin and triclosan. In flow experiments, the antimicrobial catheters were able to prevent colonization by common uropathogens Proteus mirabilis, Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli for 7 to 12weeks in vitro compared with 1-3days for other, commercially available antimicrobial catheters currently used clinically. Resistance development was minimized by careful choice of antimicrobial combinations. Drug release profiles and distribution in the polymer, and surface analysis were also carried out and the process had no deleterious effect on the mechanical performance of the catheter or its balloon. The antimicrobial catheter therefore offers for the first time a means of reducing infection and its complications in long-term urinary catheter users.

A number of analytical techniques were applied to investigate changes to the surface of unsized boron-free E-glass fibres after thermal conditioning at temperatures up to 700 °C. Novel systematic studies were carried out to investigate the fundamental strength loss from thermal conditioning. Surface chemical changes studied using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) showed a consistent increase in the surface concentration of calcium with increasing conditioning temperature, although this did not correlate well with a loss of fibre strength. Scanning electron microscopy fractography confirmed the difficulty of analysing failure-inducing flaws on individual fibre fracture surfaces. Analysis by atomic force microscopy (AFM) did not reveal any likely surface cracks or flaws of significant dimensions to cause failure: the observation of cracks before fibre fracture may not be possible when using this technique. Fibre surface roughness increased over the whole range of the conditioning temperatures investigated. Although surface roughness did not correlate precisely with fibre strength, there was a clear inverse relationship at temperatures exceeding 400 °C. The interpretation of the surface topography that formed between 400–700 °C produced evidence that the initial stage of phase separation by spinodal decomposition may have occurred at the fibre surface.