We’ve seen before that silver offers great anti-bacterial properties. Spire Corporation (Bedford, MA) is now offering an FDA approved silver coating that may reduce bacterial colonization for up to two months on its long-term dialysis catheters:
Spire Corporation (Nasdaq: SPIR) today announced that it has received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market silver coated hemodialysis catheters. The nanocrystalline, lubricious silver coating may reduce bacterial colonization on the catheter for up to two months, as demonstrated in clinical testing. The coating will be offered on Spire’s XpressO(R) and RetrO(R) silicone catheter lines under the tradenames XpressO Silver(TM) and RetrO Silver(TM); both are split-tip chronic dialysis catheters.
The coating is deposited by Ion Beam Assisted Deposition (IBAD), an advanced vacuum-based thin film deposition process. The process results in a unique nanocrystalline silver film, which exhibits very low silver elution rates and is consequently long-lasting. This same silver coating has been successfully applied to other medical devices, such as vascular grafts, where the coating has been shown to reduce bacterial attachment and biofilm formation of S. aureus bacteria while providing natural integration into the surrounding tissue.
The press release…
Company’s medical devices page…