Implants keep bacteria, infections away - report

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 08:12:00 -0700

Ilena:

Please post this article I just found.haven't find out when it was written, but it came to me via my daily 'NewsPage'.

Susana

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WASHINGTON, Reuters [WS] via NewsEdge Corporation :

Researchers said on Thursday they had created a polymer that gradually releases antibiotics, making possible implants and other medical devices that stay infection-free. The team at the University of Washington in Seattle said they hoped their material could be used in devices such as catheters -- notorious for giving

bacteria a foothold in the body -- to pacemakers.

``People don't realise that even commonly used devices like catheters account for about 50,000 hospital deaths in the United States each year, many of them because of infection,'' Buddy Ratner, who led the study, said in a statement.

``Once the bacteria get on the device, they are extremely difficult to remove and very resistant to treatment,'' Ratner said.

They form biofilms, which are strong mats of bacteria. They seem to gain strength from one another when they grow in this form, seen everywhere from the plaque on teeth to the slime growing on sewage outlets.

``It can take 100 times the concentration of an antibiotic to kill the bacteria when they are attached as it takes to kill them when they are free,'' Ratner said.

Writing in the Journal of Controlled Release, Ratner and colleagues said they had combined the antibiotic ciprofloxacin with polyethylene glycol, and mixed this with the polyurethane common in implanted devices.

``We found a way to put the antibiotic just on the surface of the device where it interfaces with the body's fluids,'' Ratner said.

The researchers said it killed bacteria for five days.