Intravesical Nanocrystalline Silver Decreases Experimental Bladder Inflammation

Main Category: Urology / Nephrology
Article Date: 30 May 2008 - 0:00 PDT

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UroToday.com - Nanocrystalline silver (NCS) particles have been investigated in many inflammatory processes. NCS 1% cream significantly decreased swelling and inflammation, including tumor necrosis factor-α gene expression and wound healing, in an experimental animal model of dermatitis. Currently NCS is clinically available as an impregnated wound dressing that is used commonly in patients with burns.

Boucher and co-workers from Boston and Dallas examined the effect of intravesical NCS in an established model of bladder inflammation using protamine sulfate and lipopolysaccharide in the rat. Results showed that short intravesical treatment with NCS 1% significantly decreased protamine/lipopolysaccharide induced urine histamine , bladder explant tumor necrosis factor - α, and bladder inflammation including mast cell accumulation and degranulation. NCS inhibited histamine release only immediately following pretreatment, but it inhibited delayed tumor necrosis factor - α release even if given after induction of the inflammatory response.

Whether this model of bladder inflammation is a good surrogate for BPS/IC is open to question. However, as the authors suggest in their conclusion, intravesical NCS may be worth studying together with other modalities in the subgroup of patients with BPS/IC who have documented bladder inflammation with or without mastocytosis.

Written by Philip Hanno, MD, MPH, as part of Beyond the Abstract on UroToday.com

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