Bacterial biofilms are involved in most device-associated infections and remain a challenge for modern medicine. One major approach to addressing this problem is to prevent the formation of biofilms using novel antimicrobial materials, device surface modification or local drug delivery; however, successful preventive measures are still extremely limited. The other approach is concerned with treating biofilms that have already formed on the devices; this approach is the focus of our manuscript. Treating biofilms associated with medical devices has unique challenges due to the biofilm's extracellular polymer substance (EPS) and the biofilm bacteria's resistance to most conventional antimicrobial agents. The treatment is further complicated by the fact that the treatment must be suitable for applying on devices surrounded by host tissue in many cases. Nanomaterials have been extensively investigated for preventing biofilm formation on medical devices, yet their applications in treating bacterial biofilm remains to be further investigated due to the fact that treating the biofilm bacteria and destroying the EPS are much more challenging than preventing adhesion of planktonic bacteria or inhibiting their surface colonization. In this highly focused review, we examined only studies that demonstrated successful EPS destruction and biofilm bacteria killing and provided in-depth description of the nanomaterials and the biofilm eradication efficacy, followed by discussion of key issues in this topic and suggestion for future development.
Keywords: bacteria; biofilm; in situ; infection; nanomaterials; treatment.