Originally Published MPMN January/February 2002

INDUSTRY NEWS

Cipro-Based Coating Combats Nosocomial Infections

A polyurethane-based liquid that contains Cipro as its active ingredient is suitable for use as an antimicrobial coating for indwelling medical devices. Cipro is a fluoroquinolone antimicrobial agent used to treat exposure to anthrax and many other difficult microorganisms. It is trapped in the matrix of ChronoCide polymer coating, which releases the agent over a period of several days, allowing the coating to inhibit microbial surface colonization and biofilm formation.

Nosocomial (hospital-acquired) infections are particularly dangerous because many bacteria found in hospitals have developed antibiotic resistance. ChronoCide was formulated specifically to combat these types of infections.

Developed by CardioTech International Inc. (Woburn, MA; www.cardiotech-inc.com) in cooperation with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (Boston) and the University of Rhode Island (Kingston, RI), ChronoCide can be applied by spraying or dipping. Catheters and other indwelling devices, as well as long-term implantable products such as vascular grafts, which are susceptible to late infections, are among the core applications.

Current techniques designed to modify materials for infection resistance rely on external bonding agents to integrate antiseptics and antibiotics. In vitro comparisons of an indwelling catheter coated with ChronoCide and another one coated with silver sulfadiazine-chlorhexidine gluconate showed that the ChronoCide coating had 20-mm zones of inhibition after 120 hours of wash time and the other coating had none after the same amount of time.

Katherine Sweeny

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