Technology currently used to disinfect food products could be used in the healthcare setting to kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria in burn wounds, according to a recent Massachusetts General Hospital study.
Researchers at the Boston-based hospital used microsecond-pulsed, high-voltage, nonthermal electric fields to successfully kill resistant bacteria in induced burns in mice. The researchers had applied a resistant strain of Acinetobacter baumannii to the burns.
"Pulsed electrical field technology has the advantages of targeting numerous bacterial species and penetrating the full thickness of a wound," said Alexander Goldberg, PhD, the paper's lead author with MGH Center for Engineering Medicine, in a news release. "This could lead to a completely new means of burn wound disinfection without using antibiotics, which can increase bacterial resistance."
About half a million people are treated for burns every year in the U.S. Using this type of technology could be the answer to the growing, difficult-to-solve problem of multidrug-resistant burn wound infection, according to Martin Yarmush, MD, PhD, director of the MCH-CEM.
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