Free fatty acids may be as effective as antibiotics in treating catheter infections

May prove beneficial as more and more bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics

2014-08-18

(Press-News.org) PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Researchers at Rhode Island Hospital, Veterans Affair Medical Center in Providence and University of Rhode Island have found that a free fatty acid, made up of compounds similar to those naturally made in the body, may be as effective at fighting certain infections as antibiotics. The study is published online in advance of print in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy.

"More and more bacteria are developing resistance to commonly used antibiotics," said Leonard Mermel, D.O., medical director of the department of epidemiology and infection control at Rhode Island Hospital. "This study shows that in some cases, we may have an alternative to antibiotics in preventing and treating infections caused by intravenous catheters."

The researchers studied the use of specific antimicrobial lock solutions for the treatment of catheter-related bloodstream infections and found that in laboratory experiments, the treatments were equally, if not more, effective than antibiotics in treating catheter infections. The prototype used in this study, ML9-X10, is a novel, free fatty acid catheter lock solution that is under development.

"Some free fatty acids have the ability to fight bacteria, yeast and viruses," said Kerry LaPlante PharmD, of the University of Rhode Island and Veterans Affair Medical Center in Providence. "These unique compounds may provide an alternative to traditional antibiotics in preventing and treating the many intravenous catheter infections that occur each year in the U.S."

Catheter-related bloodstream infections, such as those due to Staphylococcus, are a common cause of health care-associated infections. Such infections increase hospital length of stay, overall treatment costs, and are associated with morbidity and mortality.

INFORMATION: This study was supported in part by a grant from Marvao Medical, Inc. Mermel's principal affiliation is Rhode Island Hospital, a member hospital of the Lifespan health system in Rhode Island. He also has an academic appointment at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. His co-investigators include Megan K. Luther of the University of Rhode Island and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center; and corresponding author Kerry L. LaPlante, of URI, the VA Medical Center, and the Alpert Medical School.

About Rhode Island Hospital Founded in 1863, Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, R.I., is a private, not-for-profit hospital and is the principal teaching hospital of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. A major trauma center for southeastern New England, the hospital is dedicated to being on the cutting edge of medicine and research. Last year, Rhode Island Hospital received more than $50 million in external research funding. It is also home to Hasbro Children's Hospital, the state's only facility dedicated to pediatric care. For more information on Rhode Island Hospital, visit http://www.rhodeislandhospital.org, follow us on Twitter @RIHospital or like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/rhodeislandhospitalpage.

Contact: Ellen Slingsby
August 18, 2014
401-444-6421
eslingsby@lifespan.org
Twitter: @eslingsby

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Did an exceptional iceberg sink the Titanic?

2014-08-18

While the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 is typically blamed on human, design and construction errors, a new Significance paper points to 2 other unfavorable factors outside human control: there were a greater number of icebergs than normal that year, and weather conditions had driven them further south, and earlier in the year, than was usual. The paper also notes that iceberg discharge from glaciers is increasing, with more heavy iceberg years since the 1980s than before, and increasing global warming will likely cause this trend to continue. "As use of the Arctic ...

Butterflies' evolutionary responses to warmer temperatures may compromise their ability to adapt to future climate change

2014-08-18

Members of the brown argus butterfly species that moved north in response to recent climate change have evolved a narrower diet dependent on wild Geranium plants, UK researchers report. However, butterflies that did not move north have more diverse diets, including plants such as Rockrose that are abundant in southern parts of the UK. So although rapid evolutionary changes have allowed the brown argus to move north and track the warming climate, they have led to a more restricted diet. This increased specialization may limit this butterfly's continued spread north, ...

Invasion of the Americas by mosquito-borne virus likely

2014-08-18

While media attention has been focused recently on coronavirus cases in the Arabian peninsula and the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, experts note that another threat lies in the spread of Chikungunya fever, an illness that is transmitted by mosquitoes and can cause fever, joint and muscle pain, headaches, and rashes. While it does not often cause death, the symptoms can be severe and disabling, with no treatment available. The potential for worldwide spread of Chikungunya virus is much higher than the risk of dissemination of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus ...

Study suggests hatha yoga boosts brain function in older adults

2014-08-18

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Practicing hatha yoga three times a week for eight weeks improved sedentary older adults' performance on cognitive tasks that are relevant to everyday life, researchers report. The findings involved 108 adults between the ages of 55 and 79 years of age, 61 of whom attended hatha yoga classes. The others met for the same number and length of sessions and engaged in stretching and toning exercises instead of yoga. At the end of the eight weeks, the yoga group was speedier and more accurate on tests of information recall, mental flexibility and task-switching ...

The double threat of climate and land use change enhances risks to biodiversity

2014-08-18

Researchers from Aarhus University, Denmark, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, have developed a new approach to measure the combined exposure of species to both climate and land use change. This new metric was used to assess the risk to species in the face of combined rates of climate and land use for the US from 2001 to 2051. Their results, which have just been published in Nature Climate Change, highlight areas expected to be most vulnerable to losses in biodiversity and ecosystem function due to the individual or combined effects of climate and land use ...

BGRF announces OncoFinder algorithm for reducing errors in transcriptome analysis

2014-08-18

Scientists from the Biogerontology Research Foundation (BGRF), a UK-based charity founded to support ageing research and address the challenges of a rapidly ageing population, propose a new concept for signalome-wide analysis of changes in intracellular pathways, called OncoFinder, which allows for accurate and robust cross-platform analysis of gene expression data. This new technique will allow scientists to derive useful information from and compare the hundreds of thousands of data sets obtained using legacy equipment as well as data sets obtained from biological samples ...

Ultrasound imaging of chitosan nerve conduits that bridge sciatic nerve defects in rats

2014-08-18

New simple and effective methods are needed to better evaluate the outcomes of repair using nerve conduits in vivo. Ultrasound is a common noninvasive clinical detection modality that has been used in many fields. However, ultrasound has only rarely been used to observe implanted nerve conduits in vivo. Hongkui Wang and co-workers from Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University report the first use of ultrasound to noninvasively observe the changes in chitosan nerve conduits implanted in rats over time. The ultrasound imaging clearly showed whether there are unsatisfactory ...

An inside-out vein graft filled with PRP for repair of a short sciatic nerve defect

2014-08-18

Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) containing various growth factors can promote nerve regeneration. An inside-out vein graft can substitute nerve autograft to repair short nerve defects. It is hypothesized that an inside-out vein graft filled with platelet-rich plasma shows better effects in the repair of short sciatic nerve defects. In a study reported on the Neural Regeneration Research (Vol. 9, No. 14, 2014), an inside-out vein autograft filled with platelet-rich plasma was used to bridge a 10 mm-long sciatic nerve defect in rats. At 6 and 8 weeks, the sciatic nerve function ...

Club cells are 'bad guys' during flu infection

2014-08-18

A specialized subset of lung cells can shake flu infection, yet they remain stamped with an inflammatory gene signature that wreaks havoc in the lung, according to a study published in The Journal of Experimental Medicine. Seasonal flu is caused by influenza virus, which can infect a variety of cell types in the lung. Infected cells are typically destroyed by the virus itself or by immune cells that attack infected cells. The resulting inflammation can linger on long after the virus has been eliminated leading to persistent symptoms and, in some cases, severe tissue damage. Club ...

Myc inhibition is an effective therapeutic strategy against most aggressive brain tumors

2014-08-18

Barcelona, 18 August 2014. Research led by the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) evidence the most conclusive preclinical results to-date validating Myc inhibition as a therapeutic strategy in glioma – a highly agressive tumor type that notoriously outsmarts current anti-cancer therapies. The study led by Laura Soucek, Principal Investigator of VHIO´s Mouse Models of Cancer Therapies Group, published today in Nature Communications, not only represents an important step forward in ultimately providing brain glioma patients with new therapeutic avenues, but also ...

International survey finds that support for climate interventions is tied to being hopeful and worried about climate change

NRG Oncology trial supports radiotherapy alone following radical hysterectomy should remain the standard of care for early-stage, intermediate-risk cervical cancer

Free fatty acids may be as effective as antibiotics in treating catheter infections

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: