At present the practice is used only in adults, but researchers say it should be applied to children too.
Their paper is based on a trial of nearly 1,500 children at 14 intensive care units in England.
The researchers said cutting infections would also save the NHS money.
When patients are admitted to intensive care in hospital a tube, called a line or central venous catheter, is inserted into large veins in the body to deliver drugs, food or fluids.
But bacteria are often attracted to these plastic tubes, making them one of the main reasons for infections in the patient's bloodstream.
These infections can lead to damage to the brain and other organs, and cases of septic shock. They can also occur when blood clots form in and around the tube.
In studies on adult patients, coating the catheters both inside and out with low levels of antibiotics or the blood-thinning drug heparin was found to reduce infections by 70-80%.
This study, from the UCL Institute of Child Health, and Great Ormond Street Hospital, is the first to be carried out in children.
It found that only 1% of patients using an antibiotic-coated catheter developed infections in their bloodstream, compared with 4% of patients using a standard tube.
The study called this "a significant decrease" on normal levels of infection in paediatric intensive care units.
Quen Mok, consultant in intensive care at Great Ormond Street Hospital and one of the study authors, said the tubes should now be used on children.
"Bloodstream infections can be dangerous for children who are already very sick.
"They can make conditions worse and even cause death, so ways to reduce the infection risk to our patients in intensive care would be very welcome."
Although the antibiotic-coated catheter was found to reduce infection numbers in children under 16 years old, a catheter coated in a blood-thinning drug showed no signs of cutting infection rates.
And death rates in intensive care were not reduced by the use of antibiotic-coated tubes.
Tubes coated with antibiotic are more expensive than standard tubes but the researchers said adopting them would still prove cost effective because they would result in shorter hospital stays and reduce the costs of treating infections in intensive care.

Cornwall Council said it had been awarded more than Â£30,000 in grants to enable "essential works to be carried out" on the Grade II-listed Huer's Hut on the Towan headland.
The hut dates from the 19th Century, when Newquay was still a village and part of the pilchard industry.
The works were expected to take four weeks to complete, the council said.
The council - which has a long-term lease on the building, and is responsible for its repair and maintenance - said it had formally appointed contractor Ryearch to carry out the works on the hut.
Such huts provided shelter for lookouts, known as huers, who alerted fishermen to passing pilchard shoals.
Although the current building dated back to the mid-19th Century, the known history of the site went back to the 14th Century and it may have been a hermitage, the council said.
Fewer children would develop infections in intensive care if the plastic tubes used to deliver drugs straight into their veins were coated in antibiotics, a study in The Lancet suggests.
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Work is due to start later in the autumn to repair a historic building in Newquay.