I was doing a search for silver chloride to find out if it's really as nasty as it's made out to be, and found the following, which seemed interesting to me...
Antibacterial properties of a silver chloride-coated nylon wound dressing. Adams AP, Santschi EM, Mellencamp MA Dept of Clin and Population Sci, Univ of Minnesota, College of Vet Med, St. Paul, USA. Vet Surg 1999 Jul-Aug;28(4):219-25 OBJECTIVE: A silver chloride-coated nylon wound dressing (Ag-WD) was evaluated in vitro for antimicrobial activity against five common equine wound pathogens. STUDY DESIGN: Bacterial susceptibility study. SAMPLE POPULATION: Equine wound pathogens: Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Streptococcus equi subspecies zooepidemicus, and Staphylococcus aureus. METHODS: An inoculum of each pathogen was incubated directly with Ag-WD and quantitated after 24 to 48 hours of incubation. To determine if bactericidal activity of Ag-WD was contact dependent, an inoculum of E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus was incubated separately from Ag-WD by a filter and quantitated after 18 hours of incubation. Inductively coupled plasma emission spectrometry (ICP) determined the silver concentration of Mueller-Hinton broth containing Ag-WD after 24 hours of incubation. To establish if the rate of bacterial killing by Ag-WD differed from a constant silver concentration, pathogens were exposed to a silver concentration of 6.45 microg/mL and quantitated after 18 hours. RESULTS: Direct exposure to Ag-WD significantly reduced bacterial numbers after 15 minutes for K. pneumoniae, 30 minutes for E. coli, 1 hour for P. aeruginosa, and 2 hours for S. equi subspecies zooepidemicus and Staphylococcus aureus. Indirect exposure to Ag-WD resulted in > or =99.9% and > or =90% kill of the inoculum doses of E. coli at 2 hours and Staphylococcus aureus at 18 hours, respectively. Incubation of the pathogens at the constant silver concentration resulted in bacterial killing rates similar to those obtained by incubation with Ag-WD. CONCLUSIONS: In vitro, equine pathogens are effectively killed when exposed to Ag-WD, and the rate of bacterial killing by Ag-WD is similar to a constant silver concentration of 6.45 microg/mL. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: The in vitro antimicrobial properties of this silver-coated nylon wound dressing are promising for future prevention of equine wound infections. Yours in health, James Allison -- The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver. Instructions for unsubscribing may be found at: http://silverlist.org To post, address your message to: [email protected] Silver-list archive: http://escribe.com/health/thesilverlist/index.html List maintainer: Mike Devour <[email protected]>
