The antibiotic helps doctors distinguish between a swelling and an infection

Oct 16, 2013 19:16 GMT  ·  By
Glowing antibiotic will make it easier for doctors to spot infections, researchers say
   Glowing antibiotic will make it easier for doctors to spot infections, researchers say

Writing in yesterday's issue of the journal Nature Communications, researcher Marleen van Oosten and her colleagues detail the use of a newly developed fluorescent antibiotic to pin down and treat infections before they become too severe.

In their paper, the University of Groningen scientists detail that, more often than not, doctors have trouble distinguishing normal swelling, especially around an implant site, from a potentially life-threatening infection.

Presently, the most common way to sort out this issue is to perform a biopsy and see if the swollen tissue is clear or contains microbes, Nature tells us.

However, this procedure in an invasive one. What's more, it can sometimes happen that swelling does not even develop at an implant site, in which case both the patient and the doctors remain oblivious to the fact that there is a problem and an infection can keep growing for months, maybe even years.

Microbiologist Marleen van Oosten and her fellow researchers claim that, according to their investigations, it is possible to use a fluorescent antibiotic to pin down infected tissues, thus eliminating the need to carry out a biopsy.

When injected into the bodies of mice that carried a bacterium known as Staphylococcus aureus, a glowing version of the antibiotic vancomcyn moved to the site of infection, and began to take on and destroy the microbes present in the area.

With the help of a fluorescent microscope, the researchers were able to figure out what was happening inside the rodents' bodies without having to resort to surgical procedures.

Check out the video below to get a better idea of how this diagnosis and treatment method works. The fluorescent antibiotic is represented by the red color, whereas the site of infection is represented by the blue color.

Given the fact that both the vancomcyn antibiotic and the fluorescent dye used to color it have been proven to be safe in humans, the researchers are confident that it will not be long until this innovative way of detecting infections will be used to treat human patients.