Abstract
Acidic water with a lower pH has strong anti-bacterial effects. We investigated the effects of irrigation with electrolyzed acidic water (EAW) on infected wounds in mice.
Five-week-old female C57 BL/6J mice were used; a patch of their back skin was removed and covered by a plastic sheet, that had been inoculated with Staphylococcus aureus. We divided the mice into three groups: a non-irrigation (NI) group; saline solution irrigation (SI) group; and EAW irrigation (AI) group. Once a day for 3 days, closed wounds were irrigated with saline solution or EAW using a low pressure-irrigation device. At the end of study, mice were sacrificed and examined.
There were no harmful effects of EAW, including deterioration and inflammation, were found in wounded tissue. Although a quantitative analysis of bacterial load on wounds did not show any significant differences among the groups, the AI group showed the lowest value among the groups and tended to be lower than NI group. Morphometric analysis of bacterial density on the wounds also showed the lowest density in the AI group compared to the other groups and the difference was significant.
EAW, which did not show any injurious or irritating effect on the wounded tissue, showed equivalent or superior irrigation effects on wound infection compared to those obtained with saline solution. Therefore, irrigation of EAW could be an effective means of wound treatment.
