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Comment by manmal | Hacker News Reader

There are surely alternatives/augmentations to antibiotics. One that comes to mind is that exposure to certain blue light wavelengths kills germs (as recently discovered by the anti-acne industry). They could irradiate the operated tissue with intense blue light (plus maybe red light to lessen inflammation) before sewing up. And near infrared therapy (LLLT or even LED) would deal with a lot of inflammation post-op. A quite cheap option actually.. it would of course not prevent all infections, but sure a lot of them.

ADDED

Since people seem to have trouble with the antibacterial claim, here is an article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/23009190/

Just google “pubmed blue light antimicrobial”.

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I'm pretty sure that if it were as simple as shining some light on tissue we wouldn't use antibiotics, since they come with pretty strong side-effects.

Even supposing that the light really kills germs, the light won't reach all spots in the wound and it wouldn't reach the bacteria that already entered the bloodstream.

Some light wavelengths do kill germs, this is well established (EDIT: And I don't even mean UV light, but other, visible wavelengths). Just google it up, there's lots of papers. And big cos like Neutrogena offer inexpensive devices that effectively kill bacteria responsible for acne - that's no proof, but for me an indicator that this has arrived in the mainstream.

You are right that light might only kill bacteria on tissue surface. But this is exactly where surgeons need it! My grandfather died of complications caused by a resistant strain infection after hip surgery. What happened is that bacteria from the environment entered the wound before it was sealed. Sure, you won't remotely kill all germs, but you might make an otherwise deadly infection manageable.

Just because it's not yet done, does not mean it's BS.

You are confusing anti-septic with antibiotic.

Cleaning things _before_ you operate is relativly easy. Iodine/bleach/listerene/arsenic/ozone will all kill bacteria on surfaces.

Why antibiotics are great is that they can be taken orally and they kill bacteria _inside_, but not your body.

UV/blue light is indescriminate, you can swallow a blue light pill and expect it to descriminate between your body and non-local bacteria

Why antibiotics are great is that they can be taken orally and they kill bacteria _inside_, but not your body.

FCVO "your body". Antibiotics definitely do kill gut bacteria, which many consider to be part of our bodies.

yes, it does, which is a side effect, however unlike anti septic it doesn't total the intestine wall, and anything else behind it.

For example Arsenic is a brilliant antibiotic, its just it kills you _and_ the infection. what we call antibiotics are far more diserning.

Which really is a shame. I think the terminology ought to be the other way around.

I'm not talking about UV light, see my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16113533

Which isn't the point I'm making. Topical treatments for a few genus of bacteria are _not_ a viable alternative

If you can kill many (not only some - don't know where you get that info?) bacteria, fungi etc. during an operation, while they are on their way to infect a wound, how is this not viable? I think we are misunderstanding each other. Here is another article where infected burn wounds were "disinfected" with blue light: https://newatlas.com/blue-light-kills-bacteria/26026/

"In a proof-of-concept study, led by Dr. Michael R. Hamblin of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, an array of blue LEDs was used to treat infected burns on lab mice. More specifically, the blue light was used to selectively eradicate potentially-lethal Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria in the animals’ skin and soft tissues.

The results of the study were promising. All of the light-treated mice survived, while 82 percent of the untreated control group died. Additionally, unlike bacteria-killing ultraviolet light, the blue light wasn’t harmful to the animals’ own cells."

So you're saying just have blue lights on in the OR for added protection?

Because surgeons are still going to use sterile technique, chlorhexdine, and Ancef prophylaxis. If blue light helps in a couple trials, they'll add the blue light. Maybe it'll kill those few extra aerosolized bacteria or something

Exactly, that's what my original comment said. Use it on the wound area before sewing the wound up. Or why not during the whole process.

You are missing the point, this is a _topical_ treatment. Also, it appears to require a long, large exposure. Similally it can be equally as effective to use listerene to wash the wound.

Yes it is promising, but its not a golden bullet and will not replace antibiotics.

> not only some - don't know where you get that info? I got it from the paper you linked: Leuconostoc mesenteroides (LM), Bacillus atrophaeus (BA) or Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA)

This is to be used to prevent cases so antibiotics don't have to be used for a secondary infection.

Inflammation is an important response to fight infections actually, the problem is when it gets out of control (or is too annoying to deal with). But it's not good either to shut it down completely. (Your comment seemed quite confused in that regard).

Please read up on LLLT - inflammation is not just shut down, but rather mediated. Eg blood flow is increased, energy production in cells is improved by various means (cytochrome-c-oxidase, and also pushing out of nitric oxide). I haven’t seen a good explanation of why exactly inflammation is reduced, but a very consistent finding is that wound healing is sped up and pain is reduced, often by factor 2.

What you propose is rather similar to suggesting that we drink bleach. Yes UV kills bacteria, it also kills mammalian cells.

Blue light is not UV. Yes, shining strong UV-B light on tissue causes DNA damage. I’m talking about the visible blue part of light spectrum. Eg 470nm: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/23009190/

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