Biomodification Strategies for the Development of Antimicrobial Urinary Catheters: Overview and Advances

International audienceMicrobial burden associated with medical devices poses serious health challenges and is accountable for an increased number of deaths leading to enormous medical costs. Catheter‐associated urinary tract infections are the most common hospital‐acquired infections with enhanced patient morbidity. Quite often, catheter‐associated bacteriuria produces apparent adverse outcomes such as urosepsis and even death. Taking this into account, the methods to modify urinary catheters to control microbial infections with relevance to clinical drug resistance are systematically evaluated in this review. Technologies to restrict biofilm formation at initial stages by using functional nanomaterials are elucidated. The conventional methodology of using single therapeutic intervention for developing an antimicrobial catheter lacks clinically meaningful benefit. Therefore, catheter modification using naturally derived antimicrobials such as essential oils, curcumin, enzymes, and antimicrobial peptides in combination with synthetic antibiotics/nanoantibiotics is likely to exert sufficient inhibitory effect on uropathogens and is extensively discussed. Futuristic efforts in this area are projected here that demand clinical studies to address areas of uncertainty to avoid development of bacterial resistance to the new generation therapy with minimum discomfort to the patients

A Novel Route for the Preparation of Silver Loaded Polyvinyl Alcohol Nanogels for Wound Care Systems

<div><p>This study is aimed at the development of a composite wound dressing containing nanosilver loaded polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) nanogels. The PVA nanogels were prepared by fructose induced reduction of silver nitrate within PVA gel to develop nanosilver nanogel (nGel). The influence of various synthesis parameters on PVA nanogel formation was investigated. The particle size of the nanogels, as evaluated by transmission electron microscopy was observed to be in the range of 10–50 nm. Glycerol was added to the nGel system and this composition, nGel/Glc, was coated on cotton fabric to develop a composite wound dressing. The cumulative release of silver from the dressing was found to be ∼36% of the total loading after 48 h. Even at such low concentrations, high antibacterial efficiency was achieved against both gram positive and gram negative bacteria. <i>In vivo</i> wound healing studies were carried out over a period of 21 days on full-thickness skin wounds created on Swiss albino mice. Fast healing was observed in nGel/Glc treated wounds with minimum scarring, as compared to other groups. These results suggest that nGel/Glc based dressing material could be promising candidates for wound dressing applications.</p></div