Biofilm, a new phenomenon - a big problem

Among the many topical issues in modern aesthetic medicine, not so long ago, another new phenomenon has been discussed – biofilm. By itself, the concept of a biofilm implies a conglomerate of microorganisms located on a surface, while their cells are attached to each other. As a complication after cosmetic procedures, biofilm can occur after the introduction of predominantly low-quality fillers. At the conference "Sakura Esty Derm" The biofilm issue was raised by one of the organizers of the event, dermatologist Inga Alexandrovna Voloshina-Andrashko. Especially for the readers of estet-portal.com, Inga Alexandrovna told in more detail about what a biofilm is and how to deal with this new and rather serious problem.

Inga Alexandrovna, you are one of the organizers of this conference. Tell our readers what you would like to convey to all its participants?

We have been nurturing the idea of ​​the conference for more than one year. By holding local events that were successful, we noticed that there is a great interest among dermatologists and estheticians in some kind of unification and symbiosis, which we tried to convey in this conference of ours. Since we have just the perfect “home combination”, because my husband Yuri Andrashko is a dermatologist, and I am rather an esthetician, we understood what knowledge dermatologists lack and what knowledge estheticians would like to add in the field of dermatology. Therefore, we have created such an event, which, in its structure, in my opinion, would be as interesting as possible. We tried to convey and transform our view from the inside, as a consumer, into the conference program.

You are making a presentation "Biofilm, a new phenomenon – big problem. What is biofilm and why is it a problem for aesthetic medicine?

Actually, there are no hard statistics on the number of cases of biofilm appearance, however, we are starting to deal with this problem, especially those specialists who deal with complications, and to whom a fairly large number of complications in each region flow.

Today, in the general pool of complications, we already distinguish some podcasts, and in the general pool of infectious complications, we begin to separate the concept of biofilm.

This is a non-classical inflammatory reaction, so today I would like to explain to doctors in detail what it is, and at least think about how to deal with it. Unfortunately, today there are no well-established protocols for solving the problem of biofilm, so we have to look in practice with what drugs we can fight biofilm, and, most importantly, how to try to prevent such a phenomenon as biofilm.

What specific methods of therapy and prevention are we talking about?

Antibiotic therapy, as a classic solution to any infectious problems, is not in the first place today.

Antibiotic therapy today is somewhat complicated due to the structural features and reaction of the biofilm to the antibiotic, which either does not let it through or binds it.

Therefore, today it is necessary to look at how it is possible to influence the biofilm exopolymer matrix, which protects the colonization of microorganisms. The first line of therapy will include enzyme preparations and topical antibacterial agents. I will also talk about new drugs that are just appearing on the market today. They are not yet commercially available, but are being actively developed, because this problem is quite new, and the pharmacological market, which, like microbiological research, relied on one individual planktonic bacterium, creating doses of antibiotics and other drugs for this, is not in time today. . Therefore, we must stimulate the market for the emergence of new drugs.

Inga Alexandrovna, tell me why the problem of biofilm has only recently been discussed?

Because in our practice, biofilm most often began to appear after the introduction of specific fillers. These are very hydrophilic fillers, long-lasting fillers, that is, one and a half to two years, fillers with large particles, and, unfortunately, these are not always high-quality products, fillers are not very well cleaned of endotoxins, and the declared country of origin does not always correspond to the truth and that that this product does contain hyaluronic acid.

So, the exclusion of the use of such drugs can be called one of the methods for preventing the occurrence of biofilm?

Yes, this is one of the methods of prevention. Other methods of prevention exist by Dr. – this is the choice of the right technique, the choice of a cannula or a needle, today we are trying to reduce the number of bolus injections of drugs, we are trying to work more with vectors and cannula techniques, and no one has canceled the concepts of asepsis and antiseptics, because today this is also a very important point in the prevention of biofilm. On the part of the patient, there are also certain limitations that he should be aware of.