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Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. doi:10.1128/AAC.00760-08
Copyright (c) 2008, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved.

Chitosan acetate bandage as a topical antimicrobial dressing for infected burns

Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA; Department of Dermatology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Cambridge, MA

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: hamblin{at}helix.mgh.harvard.edu.

	Abstract

HemCon® bandage is an engineered chitosan acetate preparation used as a hemostatic dressing, and its chemical structure suggests that it should also be antimicrobial. We previously showed that when chitosan acetate bandage was applied to full thickness excisional wounds in mice that had been infected with pathogenic bioluminescent bacteria (Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Proteus mirabilis, and Staphylococcus aureus) it was able to rapidly kill the bacteria and save mice from developing fatal infections. Wound healing was also stimulated. We now asked whether chitosan acetate bandage could act as a topical antimicrobial dressing when applied to third degree burns in mice contaminated with two of these bacterial species (P. aeruginosa and P. mirabilis). Preliminary experiments established the length of burn time and number of bacteria needed to produce fatal infections in untreated mice, and that the chitosan acetate bandage could adhere to the infected burn for up to 21 days. In case of P. aeruginosa infections, survival rates of mice treated with chitosan acetate bandage were 73.3% (compared to nanocrystalline silver dressing survival 27.3%, p=0.0055, and untreated infection survival 13.3%, p<0.0002). For P. mirabilis infections, the comparable survival rates were 66.7%, 62.5% and 23.1% respectively. Quantitative bioluminescent signals showed that chitosan acetate bandage effectively controlled the growth of bacteria in the burn and prevented development of systemic sepsis as shown by blood culture. These data suggest that chitosan acetate bandage is efficacious in preventing fatal burn infections.