Surgical dressing fights infections with electricity

This is the view of researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center who have shown for the first time that weak electric fields can also help to heal infected burn wounds. Their results are published in Annals of Surgery.

"Drug resistance in bacteria is a major threat, and antibiotic-resistant biofilm infections are estimated to account for at least 75 per cent of bacterial infections in the United States," said Dr Chandan Sen, director of Ohio State's Center for Regenerative Medicine & Cell Based Therapies, who led the study with colleagues at the Medical Center's Comprehensive Wound Center and Center for Microbial Interface Technology. "This is the first pre-clinical long-term porcine study to recognise the potential of 'electroceuticals' as an effective platform technology to combat wound biofilm infection."

Bacterial biofilms represent a major wound complication as they can resist drug treatments. Bacteria rely on electrostatic interactions to adhere to surfaces, an important aspect of biofilm formation. The concept that weak electric fields may have anti-biofilm property was first reported in 1992.