European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

Aim: To studybiofilm production by Pseudomonas aeruginosaon endotracheal tubing in the presence of bacteriophage and sub-inhibitory concentration of imipenem.Methods and Results: A total of 20 clinical isolates of P.aeruginosa obtained from endotracheal samples were taken for this study. Bacteriophages were obtained from sewage samples from sewage water treatment plant. Biofilm assay was performed by modified O’Toole and Kolter method wherein a piece of sterile 0.5cm2 ETTwas incorporated into the microtitre plate wells. Student’s unpaired t test, Kruskal Wallis, ANOVA and HSD Tukey’s test were used to analyse data with SPSS 17.0 software. P value of ˂0.05 was considered statistically significant.Of the 20 isolates, only four (20%) of the isolates were resistant to imipenem. In the presence of bacteriophage, the biofilm production was very less in comparison to biofilm production in the presence of sub-inhibitory concentration of imipenem or in plain broth (p = 0.004). Conclusions: Bacteriophages effectively reduced the biofilm production by P. aeruginosa on catheter tip. Significance and Impact:The present study demonstrates the effectiveness of using bacteriophage as a biofilm reducing agent. Further studies are required to prove the use of bacteriophage coated ETT to curb hospital acquired infections