Published online: 4 May 2007; | doi:10.1038/news070430-13 / http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070430/full/070430-13.html
Maggots eat up resistant bacteria
Creepy crawlies are the latest weapon in the anti-MRSA arsenal.Katharine Sanderson
| It looks bad, but it works: maggots can clean out some foot wounds better than drugs. |
|
The
drug-resistant bug MRSA has a new adversary - the maggot. Researchers
in Manchester, UK, have just won a grant to compare maggots with other
more hi-tech treatments for people with diabetes who suffer from
infected feet.
A
quarter of all people with diabetes are at risk of foot ulcers, because
of the reduced blood circulation caused by the damaging effects of high
blood glucose. These lesions often become infected.
Antibiotic-resistant bacateria such as methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus
(MRSA) are becoming increasingly common - and consequently increasingly
hard to treat. "MRSA is not just in hospitals, it's everywhere," says
team leader Andrew Boulton at Manchester University.
Antibiotics
prove useless against these bugs. So Boulton decided to turn his
attention to maggots. These creatures have been called into action to
chew up infected tissues ever since the American Civil War, and have
been used in diabetes clinics for a decade. Boulton wanted to see how
they fared against MRSA.
A small initial trial, published this February, showed considerable success.
'Larval therapy' (the polite term for maggot treatment) was excellent
for shifting MRSA infected tissue: in 12 out of 13 patients, their
wounds healed after between three and five applications of maggots,
each lasting four to five days. "It's primitive but effective," says
Boulton.
The
charity Diabetes UK has now given Boulton £98,000 (US$195,000) to test
maggots versus two other treatments: silver-containing dressings and a
biogun - which zaps infection by ionizing molecular oxygen and creating
bug-beating superoxide radicals. The trial will involve a total of 65
patients and will begin within a few months. Boulton expects the
maggots to fare the best : "We hope that this trial will confirm our
findings" he says.
The trial has been temporarily held up because the UK's
Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency claims that the
ancient maggot-healing technique is a new therapy that requires a
special licence. But Boulton expects to overcome this hurdle within a
few weeks.
Boulton
is also collaborating with microbiologists to find out how the
treatment works. The maggots might secrete an antibacterial goo, or
they might be just devouring the infected flesh. Boulton has noticed
that the MRSA infection is highly concentrated around the maggots -
rather like iron filings around a magnet, he says. But at the moment
how and why this happens is a mystery.
References : Bowling F. L., Salgami E. V., Boulton A. J. M.,
et al. Diabetes Care,
30
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370
-
371
(2007).
En vidéo : des asticots pour nettoyer nos plaies !
http://www.futura-sciences.com/fr/sinformer/actualites/news/t/medecine/d/en-video-des-asticots-pour-nettoyer-nos-plaies_11794/ 
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