News

Potential breakthrough in beating hospital bugs

Published 19 October 2011

University of Brighton scientists have successfully tested a breakthrough product that could cut the rate of some hospital-acquired infections, leading to a reduction in morbidity and mortality across the country.

Hospitals around the world could benefit from the work, and health authorities could save millions of pounds in treatment costs.

The study was conducted by Dr Ian Cooper and Dr Anna Guildford from the university's Microbiology research group and BrightSTAR research group within the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences for Cambridge-based medical materials company CamStent Ltd.

Dr Ian Cooper and Dr Anna Guildford

It showed the product can greatly reduce the number of live organisms adhering to surfaces, thereby preventing the development of urinary tract infections, or at least slowing down the multiplication of the bacterium which accounts for up to 90 per cent of all catheter-acquired infections.

Up to 100 million catheters are used by hospitals worldwide each year. However, current antimicrobial products fail to significantly decrease infection rates in long-term use.

Catheter-acquired urinary tract infections affect about half of all hospitalised adults who have urinary catheters in place for longer than a week, leading to extended hospital stays and significant additional medical expenses, as well as a poorer quality of life for the bed-bound patient.

Details of the product are a commercial secret at present and CamStent hope it will be in use in hospitals by late 2013. Research to engineer the product to protect catheters was conducted at the University of Sheffield.