Antibacterial and Skin Protective Effects of Polyquaternium-51-Containing Ethanol

Abstract

  The efficacy for hand disinfection was investigated of ethanol (EtOH) containing polyquaternium-51(PQN), a novel skin-protective agent, (PQN-EtOH). Only 17.5% PQN had no antibacterial effect. The hand bacteria reduction rates were calculated by the following formula, (B-A)/B×100, where B and A are the bacterial colony numbers on the hand before and after extensive 30-second rubbing with disinfectants, respectively, and showed that 83%EtOH and 16.6%PQN-83%EtOH achieved reduction rates of 96.4% and 96.5%, respectively, indicating that PQN has no effect on the antibacterial activity of EtOH. Finally, a reduction rate as high as 99.5% was obtained by further addition of benzethonium chloride (0.2%) to PQN-80%EtOH. Spreading of 100 μL of PQN-80% EtOH or 80% EtOH on the lesions of the back skin of hairless mice twice a day for 10 days resulted in similar local skin water amounts in PQN-EtOH-treated mice as in the untreated control mice, whereas these values in EtOH-treated mice were significantly lower than those in the control mice. These data suggest that PQN-EtOH might be a useful hand disinfectant with the additional activity of preventing skin chapping.