<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Healthcare-associated infections (HAI), especially those in hospitalized patients, can be regarded as an important public health problem worldwide. In this article we presented an overview on the use of antimicrobial textiles, including those with silver/nanosilver, as a new approach to countering HAI by reducing the potential risk of the pathogen transmission between patients and healthcare workers. The strong antimicrobial <italic>in vitro</italic> activity of these engineered textiles was confirmed <italic>in vitro</italic> against several HAI-associated pathogens, including multiresistant strains belonging to alert pathogens. However, according to literature data, the sole use of antimicrobial clothing by healthcare workers appears to not be sufficient for the prevention and control of HAI. Further comprehensive and controlled studies are needed to assess the real-time efficacy of the antimicrobial textiles in healthcare settings. Moreover, there is a need to control the silver use not only for medical applications, but also for non-medical purposes due to a possibility for the emergence and spread of silver resistance among microorganisms, especially Gram-negative bacteria.</p></abstract>

Healthcare-associated infections (HAI), especially those in hospitalized patients, can be regarded as an important public health problem worldwide. In this article we presented an overview on the use of antimicrobial textiles, including those with silver/nanosilver, as a new approach to countering HAI by reducing the potential risk of the pathogen transmission between patients and healthcare workers. The strong antimicrobial in vitro activity of these engineered textiles was confirmed in vitro against several HAI-associated pathogens, including multiresistant strains belonging to alert pathogens. However, according to literature data, the sole use of antimicrobial clothing by healthcare workers appears to not be sufficient for the prevention and control of HAI. Further comprehensive and controlled studies are needed to assess the real-time efficacy of the antimicrobial textiles in healthcare settings. Moreover, there is a need to control the silver use not only for medical applications, but also for non-medical purposes due to a possibility for the emergence and spread of silver resistance among microorganisms, especially Gram-negative bacteria.

Medical textiles with silver/nanosilver and their potential application for the prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections – mini-review

Department of Pharmaceutical Microbiology with Laboratory for Microbiological Diagnostics

Current Issues in Pharmacy and Medical Sciences

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Healthcare-associated infections (HAI), especially those in hospitalized patients, can be regarded as an important public health problem worldwide. In this...

Medical textiles with silver/nanosilver and their potential application for the prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections – mini-review

Published Online: Jul 02, 2019

Page range: 104 - 107

Received: Nov 20, 2018

Accepted: Jan 12, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/cipms-2019-0020

Keywords
healthcare-associated infections (HAI), prevention, antimicrobial textiles, silver/nanosilver

© 2019 Lukasz Rajski et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Medical textiles with silver/nanosilver and their potential application for the prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections – mini-review

Published Online: Jul 02, 2019

Page range: 104 - 107

Received: Nov 20, 2018

Accepted: Jan 12, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/cipms-2019-0020

Keywordshealthcare-associated infections (HAI), prevention, antimicrobial textiles, silver/nanosilver

© 2019 Lukasz Rajski et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Keywords
healthcare-associated infections (HAI), prevention, antimicrobial textiles, silver/nanosilver