A National Taiwan University (NTU) study has concluded that docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) combined with a small-molecule medicine eradicates bacteria biofilms on catheters, which could help prevent catheter-associated infections common among hospital inpatients.
Biofilms are a collection of different species of bacteria DHA could prevent, that can gather on the surfaces of artificial implants or medical devices, said Chiu Hao-chieh (邱浩傑), a professor at the university’s Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences and Medical Biotechnology.
When biofilms form on surfaces such as urinary catheters or pacemakers, they become difficult to remove due to shields that block attacks from the immune system or antibiotics. This significantly raises the chances of infections such as catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs), Chiu said.
Photo: CNA
“For adult patients who are hospitalized, about one-quarter require urinary catheters during their stay,” he said, adding that there is a 75 percent chance of developing a CAUTI after having a catherer inserted.
Citing data from the US, Chiu said that CAUTIs cost the US an extra US$450 million in medical expenses each year and have a 2.3 percent mortality rate.
Chiu’s team, funded by the National Science and Technology Council, found that DHA, a fatty acid that is widely used as a dietary supplement, combined with SC5005, a small-molecule medicine that was first synthesized by his team, can penetrate biofilms.
Together they display synergistic bactericidal activity — the ability to kill the bacteria.
Within 10 minutes, the combination of DHA and SC5005 can effectively eradicate more than 95 percent of biofilms on urinary catheters collected from patients who developed CAUTIs, regardless of the species of the bacteria or their drug resistance, Chiu said.
While no detectable cytotoxicity toward human cell lines was observed, the team also tested whether Staphylococcus aureus, a common bacterial species in biofilms, would develop drug resistance after long-term exposure to the combination.
After 35 consecutive days of using the combination, no resistance appeared to have built up, regardless of whether the Staphylococcus aureus strain was resistant to other drugs, Chiu said.
“This indicates that our combination can be safely used for the long term,” he said, adding that the team has decided to name the combination “ERAfilm.”
Chiu said he expects saline containing “ERAfilm” — which is still in the nonclinical development stage — could be injected into patients’ bladders. It would then remove biofilms on the urinary catheters daily to prevent CAUTIs.
Asked about other medications that can remove biofilms, Chiu said that there is only one competitor abroad that has developed a drug with similar effects.
It has entered the clinical stage, and uses bacteriophages, he said.
“However, bacteriophages can only infect specific bacteria, unlike our approach, which is broad-spectrum,” Chiu said.
Aside from Taiwan, the team has also obtained or is in the process of applying for patents for SC5005 and its derivatives in other countries and regions, such as the US, China and the EU, he said.
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