Coating indwelling urinary catheters with moxifloxacin prevents biofilm formation by Burkholderia cepacia.

Background: Burkholderia cepacia adhesion and biofilm formation onto abiotic surfaces is an important feature of clinically relevant isolates. The in vitro biofilm formation of B. cepacia onto coated indwelling urinary catheters (IDCs) with moxifloxacin has not been previously investigated.

Objectives: To examine the ability of B. cepacia to form biofilms on IDCs and the effect of coating IDCs with moxifloxacin on biofilm formation by B. cepacia in vitro.

Material and methods: The adhesion of B. cepacia to coated and uncoated IDCs with moxifloxacin was evaluated. Pieces of IDCs were coated with moxifloxacin (adsorption method). The spectrophotometric method was used to check moxifloxacin leaching into tubes. Coated and uncoated tubes were incubated with 107 colony forming units (cfu)/mL of B. cepacia. The viable bacterial count was used to count the number of bacteria adhered to coated and uncoated IDC pieces.

Results: A significant adhesion of B. cepacia to uncoated IDC pieces started 15 min after the incubation in a bacterial suspension (107 cfu/mL). A maximum adhesion was observed at 48 h. The pretreatment of IDCs with 100 μg/mL of moxifloxacin produced the best adsorption of antibiotic onto the IDCs. Coating IDC pieces with moxifloxacin significantly reduced the adhesion and biofilm formation of B. cepacia (p < 0.05) at various time intervals (1 h, 4 h and 24 h).

Conclusions: The present study has demonstrated for the first time that coated IDCs with moxifloxacin reduce B. cepacia adhesion and biofilm formation. This finding has opened the door to the production of the new generation IDCs that prevent bacteria from attaching and forming biofilms.