A highly Efficacious Electrical Biofilm Treatment System for Combating Chronic Wound Bacterial Infections.

Biofilm infection has a high prevalence in chronic wounds and can delay wound healing. Current treatments using repeated debridement and long-term antibiotic administration impose a significant burden on patients and healthcare systems. To address their limitations, we describe a highly efficacious electrical anti-biofilm system in this paper. Our system uses high-intensity current (75 mA cm -2 ) to completely debride biofilm above the wound surface and enhance antibiotic delivery and penetration into biofilm-infected wounds simultaneously. Combining these two effects, our system uses short treatments (≤ 2 h) to reduce bacterial count of MRSA biofilm-infected ex vivo skin wounds from over 10 10 CFU g -1 to 10 5.2 CFU g -1 . Taking advantage of the hydrogel ionic circuit design, our system enhances the in vivo safety of high-intensity current application compared to conventional devices. The in vivo anti-biofilm efficacy of our system is tested using a diabetic mouse-based wound infection model. MRSA biofilm bacterial count decreases from 10 9.0 CFU g -1 to 10 4.6 CFU g -1 at 1-day post-treatment and to 10 3.3 g -1 at 7-day post-treatment, both of which are below the clinical threshold for infection. Overall, our novel technology provides a quick, safe, yet highly efficacious treatment to chronic wound biofilm infection and will facilitate wound healing process. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.