Opto-chemical treatment for enhanced high-level disinfection of mature bacterial biofilm in a Teflon-based endoscope model

Van Nam Tran; Periaswamy Sivagnanam Saravana; Suhyun Park; Van Gia Truong; Byung-Soo Chun; Hyun Wook Kang

doi:10.1364/BOE.434047

Opto-chemical treatment for enhanced high-level disinfection of mature bacterial biofilm in a Teflon-based endoscope model

Biomed Opt Express. 2021 Aug 23;12(9):5736-5750. doi: 10.1364/BOE.434047. eCollection 2021 Sep 1.

Authors

Van Nam Tran^{1

2}, Periaswamy Sivagnanam Saravana^{3

2}, Suhyun Park⁴, Van Gia Truong¹, Byung-Soo Chun³, Hyun Wook Kang^{1

5}

Affiliations

¹ Industry 4.0 Convergence Bionics Engineering, Pukyong National University, Busan, 48513, Republic of Korea.
² These authors contributed equally to this work.
³ Department of Food Science and Technology, Pukyong National University, Busan 48513, Republic of Korea.
⁴ Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Ewha Womans University, Seoul 03760, Republic of Korea.
⁵ Department of Biomedical Engineering and Marine-integrated Biomedical Technology Center, Pukyong National University, Busan 48513, Republic of Korea.

Abstract

Medical societies and public health agencies rigorously emphasize the importance of adequate disinfection of flexible endoscopes. The aim of this work was to propose a novel opto-chemical disinfection treatment against Staphylococcus aureus grown in mature biofilm on Teflon-based endoscope channel models. Laser irradiation using near-infrared and blue wavelengths combined with a low concentration of chemical disinfectant induced both irreversible thermal denaturation and intercellular oxidative stress as a combined mechanism for an augmented antimicrobial effect. The opto-chemical method yielded a 6.7-log₁₀ reduction of the mature Staphylococcus aureus biofilms (i.e., approximately 1.0-log₁₀ higher than current requirement of standard treatment). The proposed technique may be a feasible disinfection method for mitigating the risk associated with infection transmission.