4 ms·

I saw a "microbial spears" product at IDWeek years ago. IIRC, Sharklet was more about biofilm formation disruption, rather than killing.

• giarc 3y ago
  Which is ironic as I don't suspect curtains would really form biofilms, but maybe it was applied to a different material. I can't quite recall. I think applying these techniques to implants is likely viable, but other materials within the hospital seem to never take off. Take for example copper coated door handles, faucets, are rests etc.
  • Fomite 3y ago
    Yeah, most of the surfaces I saw them talking about were essentially what you've mentioned - handles, tabletops, etc. I think one of the big problems here is that in this field (which happens to be the one I work in), showing effectiveness in an RCT is very hard for any single hospital due to the relatively small numbers, and the small effects you'd expect these products to have. I think the implant market is an interesting one to be going after.
    • giarc 3y ago
      That market is likely the only one where the economics makes sense. Very few hospitals are going to pay $XXX to put copper on the bed rails only to have the front line staff not wash their hands on entry. The implant market makes more sense since cost of adverse event is likely $25,000+ (readmission, surgical washout or reimplementation etc). Multiply that by 0.5-2% infection rate and you can see why a hospital would pay an extra $500+ per implant.
      • Fomite 3y ago
        I think your first point is compelling, and what I was alluding to - copper bed rails, etc. have pretty modest effect estimates. The costs themselves are on a very similar order of magnitude.