Researchers in Ireland have advanced forward in the battle against medical implant infections. They developed a new type of implant scaffold to provide localized drug treatment and prevent infection, which has already proven effective against two types of major problem bacteria. Publishing their results today in the journal Biomedical Materials, the team from the National University of Ireland Galway demonstrate how stabilized collagen scaffolds loaded with a specific antibiotic could prevent both Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus epidermidis from forming.
Lead author Dr. Dimitrios Zeugolis, from NUI Galway’s Regenerative, Modular & Developmental Engineering Laboratory (REMODEL) and Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Centre for Research in Medical Devices (CÚRAM), said that implant infections remain a major healthcare problem. They can entail long hospitalization periods to distract and treat bacterial biofilm formation. There can also be a need for additional surgeries to remove or replace the infected implant, which if not done in time may lead to sepsis.
The team first developed a collagen scaffold, with a 0.625 per cent concentration of hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) used to stabilize it. They then tested the scaffolds with variable concentrations of the antibiotics Cefaclor and Ranalexin. Dr. Zeugolis said that both drugs displayed similar loading efficiency, release profile and cytocompatibility. However, only collagen scaffolds loaded with 100 μg/ml of Cefaclor showed adequate antibacterial properties against both E-coli and Staphylococcus epidermidis.
The cross-linked collagen scaffold marks a crucial advancement forward against a problem that is both a major health problem and a severe economic burden to healthcare systems internationally.
cmcewen on June 20th, 2017 at 13:01 UTC »
Surgeon here. Infected implants can be a nightmare. Obviously infections are always bad, but when synthetic material gets infected, you're body can't resolve it as there is no blood flow to the implant. This very frequently results in having to explant the implant, in my case usually mesh of some sort. Extra surgery sure, but the difficulty is what to do when it's out. You can't put another synthetic mesh into an infected field, so now you have to reconstruct without synthetic material, and tissue that is now torn apart while removing the implant. Biological is an option but not only is biological material cost way way more (like often $10k type area) but also it will eventually degrade and isn't as sturdy. So they often end up with multiple surgeries to get them to a sub par solution.
Any fix in this area would be great.
Albino_Smurf on June 20th, 2017 at 07:42 UTC »
What does scaffold mean in this context? Is it a specific medical term or is it literally just referring to a micro-structure used to somehow help with infections?
jacknicholas60919 on June 20th, 2017 at 05:42 UTC »
Journal Reference: iopscience.iop.org