In this article, Alan Mozes from the Health Day News writes about how the possibility of preventing cross contamination of bacteria in medical equipment by coating them with an antimicrobial compound that is found in crustaceans.
When frequently used medical equipment like probes, catheters and implants like pacemakers are coated with this composite, it can put a stop to the infection of patients from harm bacteria within the hospital.
Research has found a sugar called chitosan, which appears to protect the promulgation of bacteria and yeast colonies, often called biofilms, present in crabs and shrimp. This hypothesis was presented in San Francisco at the American Chemical Society annual meeting.
Philip Stewart, a lead researcher and subsequently the director of the Center for Biolfilm Engineering at Montana State University, explains that as the age of medical technology progresses, so do implantations of medical devices that aid in the function of a human being. Pacemakers help to kick-start a heart, hip replacements allow for improved movement and contact lenses help to clear vision. All of these attachments and implants are someway or the other made of plastic, metal or synthetic materials. Every clinician knows for a fact that when a foreign body is introduced into a person, this places the individual at high risk for infection.
Chitosan, they claim, may help in the alleviation or minimization of infection in these compromised individuals by defending the surface of any type of equipment or implant from microbial growth. The researchers aim their focus on prevention, instead of dealing with the infection when it is present. The biofilm, once formed by bacteria or yeast forms a sticky layer of infectious cells and is generally resistant to standard antibiotics. Once the infection gets out of hand, the only treatment is the removal of the offending device. This is why the researchers want to stop the bacteria before they even start to do their damage.
It is interesting to note that in accordance and approval of the US Food and Drug Administration, Chitosan is already sold as a nutritional supplement for use in stemming blood loss. It also has an antimicrobial ability that is being explored. In experiments that did not use humans or animals as subjects, the researchers observed that the chitosan worked by functioning like a sharp bed of nails that did not allow microbes to grow on. The bacteria couldn’t latch on enough and eventually died.
Other researchers are optimistic about the findings, considering it a step forward in medical technology. However, more studies need to be done to prove its effectiveness in a clinical setting and is bound to meet with skepticism and criticism along the way.
Already, there are issues being brought forward, such as the longevity of the coating and the validity of its resistance to microbes. This may be a major breakthrough, but it has also opened up a lot of doors to complicated questions and potential problems. More people, like microbiologists and infectious disease specialists need to be involved in more comprehensive and sophisticated studies to confirm findings and present concrete answers. Read more on this topic