A new study done by the University of Copenhagen reports that body implants are laden with growing bacteria and fungi. Scientists studied a significant amount of implants like screws that were implanted in the body during surgery and found bacteria and fungi growing on them and surprisingly patients showed no signs of being infected. Every year a lot of Danish people get implants when they undergo hip or knee replacement surgery or when they seek treatment of broken bones. Doctors and scientists in the past assumed that the implants were not contaminated, but a research team of scientists from the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen reports that the inserted implants definitely have bacterial and fungal growth. The study was published recently in the journal APMIS.
For the study, the research team studied 106 implants and the tissue surrounding the implants from several patients. 70 percent implants had bacteria or fungi or both on them, though not one patient showed signs of infection. The results will help scientists understand how bacteria and microbiomes and their interactions with the human body. Scientists are assuming that they inserting the implant in a foreign body provides a new habitat for the bacteria. The next step in the research would be figuring out whether or not they are beneficial and do they instigate infections. Majority of implant screws had a bacterial growth on them but it is to be noted that none of the identified bacteria and fungi were pathogens like staphylococcus. Tim Holm Jakobsen, Assistant Professor at the Department of Immunology and Microbiology and co-author of the study said, “It is important to stress that we have found no direct pathogens, which normally cause infection. Of course, if they had been present, we would also have found an infection.”
The research team also carried out 39 negative controls to ensure that the implants weren’t contaminated when samples were collected or when they were analyzed. All the controls employed were negative- meaning none of them showed bacterial and fungal growth. This result helped scientists come to the fact that bacteria and fungi must be inhabiting the implant after it is inserted in the body of the patient. The average time period during which the implants had been inside the bodies was found to be 13 months. Thomas Bjarnshol, Professor at the Department of Immunology and Microbiology and co-author of the study said, “If our discovery of bacteria and fungi was simply a result of contamination, we would have reached the same results by inserting an implant in a patient and removing it again. But all the controls were negative. So it is something that develops inside the body over a period of time.”