The investigation of colloidal silver effect to prevent implant related spinal infection in rats

PURPOSE: The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of irrigation by colloidal silver solution to prevent the implant related spinal infection in rats. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty five albino Wistar rats were divided in five groups after lumbar 5 laminectomy. The rats in Group I are sacrificed without any manipulation after laminectomy. All the rats in other groups are inoculated with 108 CFU / 1 cc methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The rats in Group II (control group) are only inoculated with MRSA without any manipulation, the rats in Group III are placed titanium implant and irrigate with saline solution, the rats in Group IV are only irrigated with colloidal silver solution and the rats in Group V are placed titanium implant and irrigated with colloidal silver solution. After a week the rats in all gropus are sacrificed and the microbiological study performed. All the tissue examples studied by calculation number of bacteria as CFU / gr. Results are compared by Kruskal-Wallis variance analysis and Mann ? Whitney ? U test. Differences are considered to be significant at p<0.05. RESULTS: Kruskal-Wallis variance analysis was performed between four groups (Group II, Group III, Group IV and Group V) and statistically significant difference revealed between them (p:0.018). Mann ? Whitney ? U test is used to reveal statistically significant difference between two groups. As compared to the control group (Group II) only the Group V revealed statistically significant difference (p:0.013). When we compare the two groups that have titanium implant (Group III and Group V) , there is a statistically significant difference (p:0.025). We found the number of bacteria in Group V is much less than the Group III . CONCLUSION: We found statistically significant difference between the two groups that have titanium implant. However, before the use of colloidal silver in spine surgery for the prevention of infections, toxicity and side effects of colloidal silver should be studied widely. KEYWORDS: Rat, Infection, Titanium Implant, Colloidal silver