Scientists come up with a new antibiotic that can be used with bone cement

Bone cement is a material that is used by doctors during operations on the knee or hip joints, as well as on the spine. Often, during these surgical procedures, antibiotics are added to the bone cement to avoid bacterial infections. As a result, the material fixes the artificial joint in place, and the medicine, in turn, protects the junction from harmful bacteria.

Scientists at the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys have developed an antibiotic that is resistant to staphylococcus and also slows down the development of resistance in the future. According to Said Karshiev, candidate of biological sciences, commercial cements with antibiotics already exist on the market, but all of them are mainly with a broad-spectrum antibiotic – gentamicin. The new antibiotic is able to bind to bacterial enzymes in such a way that it causes the death of bacterial colonies resistant to other antibiotics.

“The new antibiotic made it possible to quickly suppress the development of infection and cause rapid regeneration of bone tissue in models of staphylococcal bone infection in mice,” said Said Karshiev. – It can become indispensable in the fight against local infection in knee and hip arthroplasty.

Mona Platonov.

Photo by Moskovskaya Pravda