TCS, a catheter lock solution, combines two active ingredients vital to the effective management of vascular access catheters; Taurolidine and Citrate. When TCS is instilled in device lumens, their internal flow passages are resistant to clot formation and hostile to bacterial and fungal growth. TCS is non-toxic and there are no known systemic effects. Taurolidine, an anti-microbial agent, promotes catheter patency by preventing Biofilm formation while Citrate, acts as the anticoagulant. The taurolidine component offers broad spectrum antimicrobial activity against aerobic and anaerobic gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, yeast and fungi interacts with the components of microbial cell walls, resulting in irreparable injury prevents biofilm development and consequently bacterial and fungal colonization, decreasing the risk of infection does not induce the development of resistant microbes. The citrate component forms a complex with calcium, disrupting the normal coagulation cascade, precipitating it into an unusable form inhibiting blood coagulation with no systemic effect. TCS is effective in the prevention of catheter associated infections and occlusions in all laboratory species from rodents to non-human primates. TCS has a favorable safety profile. It is non-toxic and has no known topical or systemic effect. No development of resistance to TCS has been reported.
