Antimicrobial biologically active fibers for medical applications

Abstract

The use of textile materials in medicine has a long tradition. An important field of application of textiles in medicine is in wound care and prevention of chronic wounds, for which bandages and wound dressings are used. Modern medicine demands textile materials with special properties. The most important are biologically active fibers, and among them antimicrobial fibers which are able to kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria, fungi and/or other pathogenic microorganisms. Due to their high efficacy, antimicrobial fibers have become necessary in prevention and therapy, especially in festering wound healing and prevention of chronic wounds. Among all biologically active fibers and biomedical textile materials antimicrobial fibers are mostly used, mainly because of their ability for controlled and long-term releasing of antimicrobial agents and their stability against inactive factors, as well as their simple and easy application. The scope of this review focuses on properties of antimicrobial fibers and mechanisms of their antimicrobial activity, as well as physicochemical bases of antimicrobial fibers obtaining and test methods used to confirm their antimicrobial activity. Also, representative pathogenic microorganisms are listed. Antimicrobial fibers of natural and synthetic origin are reviewed, as well as advances and future trends in their development.

Medicinski tekstilni materijali se veoma dugo i široko koriste u medicinske svrhe. Posebno važno mesto za- uzimaju kao materijali za previjanje, naročito u hirurgiji i lečenju gnojnih rana. Savremena medicina zahteva tekstilne materijale sa specijalnim svojstvima. Najznačajniji među njima su biološki-aktivna vlakna, a u okviru njih antimikrobna vlakna, koja poseduju sposobnost da uništavaju ili sprečavaju razvoj bakterija, gljivica i druge patogene flore. Zbog svoje visoke efektivnosti antimikrobna vlakna zauzimaju značajno mesto u profilaksi i terapiji, posebno gnojnih procesa i rana. Njihova sposobnost da kontrolisano i prolongirano otpuštaju lekoviti antimikrobni preparat, da su stabilna na dejstvo inaktivirajućih faktora, da se jednostavno i lako apliciraju stavlja ih na prvo mesto medu biološki-aktivnim vlaknima i biomedicinskim tekstilnim materijalima. U radu su obrađena svojstva antimikrobnih vlakana, reprezentativni patogeni mikroorganizmi i mehanizam antimikrobne aktivnosti biološki-aktivnih vlakana. Takođe, obrađene su fizičko-hemijske osnove dobijanja antimikrobnih vlakana i metode njihovog karakterisanja. Dat je pregled pojedinačnih antimikrobnih vlakana prirodnog i sintetizovanog porekla kao i savremeni trendovi i budući pravci njihovog daljeg razvoja.