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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 March 2012
Ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) is a serious and costly clinicalproblem. Specifically, receiving mechanical ventilation for over 24 hoursincreases the risk of VAP and is associated with high morbidity, mortalityand medical costs. Cost effective endotracheal tubes (ETTs) that areresistant to bacterial infection could help prevent this problem. Theobjective of this study was to determine differences in the growth of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) onnanomodified and unmodified polyvinyl chloride (PVC) ETTs under dynamicairway conditions. PVC ETTs were modified to have nanometer surface featuresby soaking them in Rhizopus arrhisus, a fungal lipase.Twenty-four hour experiments (supported by computational models) showed thatair flow conditions within the ETT influenced both the location andconcentration of bacterial growth on the ETTs especially within areas oftube curvature. More importantly, experiments revealed a 1.5 log reductionin the total number of S. aureus on the novel nanomodifiedETTs compared to the conventional ETTs after 24 hours of air flow. Thisdynamic study showed that lipase etching can create nano-rough surfacefeatures on PVC ETTs that suppress S. aureus growth and,thus, may provide clinicians with an effective and inexpensive tool tocombat VAP.