A small study of patients with diabetic foot ulcers showed that using topical oxygen as part of treatment can encourage the growth of healthy bacteria — making this a possible alternative to antibiotics.
Researchers affiliated with a Canadian wound clinic observed the microbiomes of chronic wounds in six patients whom they treated with a wearable, humidified oxygen device. They swabbed wounds over an eight-week period to track microbiome diversity and sequence rDNA.
“The diabetic foot ulcer microbiome is enriched in anaerobic bacteria when compared with other wounds and harbors a greater number of opportunistic pathogens when compared with contralateral intact skin,” the team reported in the March issue of Wounds. “Given that the wound microbiome represents the building blocks of biofilm formation, understanding its composition and response to treatment is the first step toward improving treatment of biofilms in chronic wounds.”
Following oxygen treatment, the microbiome in five diabetic wounds were found to have shifted toward a diverse flora dominated by aerobes, rather than anaerobes linked to inflammation.
