Dear Judy,

In the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, they have been treating
biofilms -- including those responsible for sinusitis -- successfully for
over 60 years with phage therapy.  Phage therapy was used in Western
medicine until the discovery of antibiotics, in the early 1940's. Phage
therapy is now being re-discovered by medical microbiologists along with an
understanding of what biofilms are and how they work. Clinical studies are
showing that bacteriophages will clear biofilm.

There is still no effective bacteriophage-based treatment for CF, however
there is evidence that it can be effective. There is a group from the CF
foundation with representatives from Slovenia, Republic of Georgia and the
US now exploring this possibility via a new clinic located in Tbilisi,
Georgia.

Here are some references; there are also lots of articles published in
PubMed and elsewhere on the Internet about phage therapy, chronic infection,
and biofilms.

Bacteriophage Therapy (Minireview)
Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, March 2001, p. 649-659, Vol. 45, No.
3
0066-4804/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/AAC.45.3.649-659.2001
Alexander Sulakvelidze, Zemphira Alavidze, and J. Glenn Morris Jr.
url: http://aac.asm.org/cgi/content/full/45/3/649

In the 1940s, the Eli Lilly Company (Indianapolis, Ind.) produced seven
phage products for human use, including preparations targeted against
staphylococci, streptococci, Escherichia coli, and other bacterial
pathogens. These preparations consisted of phage-lysed, bacteriologically
sterile broth cultures of the targeted bacteria (e.g., Colo-lysate,
Ento-lysate, Neiso-lysate, and Staphylo-lysate) or the same preparations in
a water-soluble jelly base (e.g., Colo-jel, Ento-jel, and Staphylo-jel).
They were used to treat various infections, including abscesses, suppurating
wounds, vaginitis, acute and chronic infections of the upper respiratory
tract, and mastoid infections. However, the efficacy of phage preparations
was controversial (20, 26), and with the advent of antibiotics, commercial
production of therapeutic phages ceased in most of the Western world.
Nevertheless, phages continued to be used therapeuticallytogether with or
instead of antibioticsin Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union.
Several institutions in these countries were actively involved in
therapeutic phage research and production, with activities centered at the
Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, Microbiology, and Virology (EIBMV) of the
Georgian Academy of Sciences, Tbilisi, Georgia, and the Hirszfeld Institute
of Immunology and Experimental Therapy (HIIET) of the Polish Academy of
Sciences, Wroclaw, Poland.

Phages and their application against drug-resistant bacteria
J. chem. technol. biotechnol. 2001 v76, p689-699</ref>
N Chanishvili, T Chanishvili, M. Tediashvili, P.A. Barrow
url: http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1096871

Since the discovery of spontaneous bacterial lysis by Twort and by d'Herelle
phage therapy has been used extensively with miscellaneous bacterial
invections in the areas of oto-laryngology, stomatology, opthalmology,
dermatology, pediatrics, gynecology, surgery (especially against wound
infections), urolog, and pulmonology.

Using Bacteriophages To Reduce Formation of Catheter-Associated Biofilms by
Staphylococcus epidermidis
Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, April 2006, p. 1268-1275, Vol. 50,
No. 4
John J. Curtin and Rodney M. Donlan*
0066-4804/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AAC.50.4.1268-1275.2006
url: http://aac.asm.org/cgi/content/full/50/4/1268?etoc

Despite the potential advantages of phage therapy, only a few studies have
concentrated on its direct application toward biofilm control and treatment.
Sillankorva et al. (55) demonstrated the ability of phage S1 to reduce
Pseudomonas fluorescens biofilm biomass by 85%. The biofilms treated with
phage SI were more efficiently controlled than by using traditional chemical
biocides. Additionally, the disruption of Pantoea agglomerans biofilms by a
phage in combination with degradation of the exopolysaccharide matrix and
subsequent lysis of cells has been reported (30). Doolittle et al. (18)
observed that the extracellular matrix of Escherichia coli biofilms did not
protect the bacterial cells from infection with phage T4 and that
phage-infected cells were associated with the biofilm surface (19).
Infecting phage titer may also be an important factor; it has been
previously reported that a multiplicity of infection of 100 resulted in a
greater disruption than an multiplicity of infection of 10 at 90 min post-T4
phage infection of an E. coli biofilm (10). Recently, a nontoxic,
biodegradable polymer film impregnated with phages, ciprofloxacin, and
benzocaine was developed. This technology, named PhagoBioDerm, has been used
successfully to treat patients with ulcers (42) and infected burns (32) that
were unresponsive to conventional therapies. It is important to note that
there is a distinct lack of stringently controlled, blinded studies on the
efficacy of phage therapy for the treatment of human infections. This
notwithstanding, however, these studies suggest that there is a clear
potential for the development of phage-impregnated or coated materials for
the prevention of bacterial infection.

Bacteriophage therapy: an alternative to conventional antibiotics.
J Assoc Physicians India 51: 593-6.
Mathur MD, Vidhani S, Mehndiratta PL. (2003).
PMID: 15266928
url:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Abstra
ctPlus&list_uids=15266928&query_hl=13&itool=pubmed_docsum

Bacteriophage therapy is an important alternative to antibiotics in the
current era of multidrug resistant pathogens. A review of studies that dealt
with the therapeutic use of phages from 1966-1996 and few latest ongoing
phage therapy projects via internet showed: phages were used topically,
orally or systemically in Polish and Soviet studies. The success rate found
in these studies was 80-95% with few gastrointeslinal or allergic side
effects. British studies also demonstrated significant efficacy of phages
against Escherichia coli, Acinetobacter spp., Pseudomonas spp and
Staphylococcus aureus. US studies dealt with improving the bioavailability
of phage. Phage therapy may prove as an important alternative to antibiotics
for treating multidrug resistant pathogens.

Best regards,
Chris Smith

We've discussed biofilms before, but any new information is
appreciated. The big question is how to disrupt them and effectively
treat them. In cystic fibrosis, once you've got pseudomonas you've got
a biofilm, and the prognosis is worse.
 Thanks for the information.
Judy

On Jan 31, 9:18 am, "Chris Smith" <birdw...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

url:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&...

url:http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&ar...

Chris;
It would be useful to have a list of locations where they would be
willing to take samples to send off to Georgia.

New group member, old sinus sufferer.

Someone mentioned a need for biofilm disrupters.

I can name a few.

Vitamin C
EDTA
Sodium Nitrate
Lactose
Mannose
Methylsulphonylmethane (MSM)
Of course peppermint oil, suitably diluted.
I think it likely that lactic acid also should work, because the
quorum sensing bacterial conversations are conducted in acetyl hydro
lactones.
Also the garlic mustard plant make a fungicide so powerful that it is
considered a pest because where it grows it kills hardwood forests by
killing off the symbotic fungi the trees depend on as an ancillary
root system.
Regular yellow mustard is also antibacterial and antifungal, it was
used as a wound dressing in the middle ages.
Mustard oil also has these properties and can be purchased at an
Indian grocery.

When my sinus passages have been entirely blocked, It is easier for me
to clear the sinuses by holding these in my mouth for a few minutes to
allow them to diffuse into my sinuses, and then sniffing the loosened
mucus out the back.
Only when most of the gunk has been sucked out the back way do I start
spraying my sinuses, because I have had the ice flo effect, everything
trying to come out at once, choking and gagging me and getting stuck
because the back way out was still blocked.

You guys all know sinuses are NOT simple. There are air pockets and
plumbing going every which way.
I think that the sinuses are actually vestigial gills that were
enclosed when we got a diaphragm,
They still can contribute a third to our oxygen uptake if they are
open.
However to simplify I envision them as a path shaped like a golf club.
with a bit of a straw down coming off the front. Basically a smaller
inlet and outlet separated by a roughly club shaped space 4 inches
long, with the inlet and outlet coming down from either end. Note how
stuff can fall out of the top of the club shape and into the air path!
Now just to make things interesting, add a tube coming out from either
side to your inner ear, so if you really have a lot of goo, and you
blow hard, the path of least resistance is to blow goo down into your
estuation tubes and into you inner ear.   It takes a couple of days to
suck most of the goo out the back way, but they are easier to keep
open from there.