Vancouver, Canada, July 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ondine Biomedical Inc. congratulates Dr. Elizabeth Bryce, Dr. Diane Roscoe and Dr. Titus Wong of Vancouver Coastal Health (British Columbia, Canada) for winning the 2019 Significant Advancement of Photodynamic Therapy Award at the 17th International Photodynamic Association World Congress in Boston, Massachusetts.
Drs. Bryce, Roscoe, and Wong and their multidisciplinary team were the first to implement PDT-based nasal decolonization therapy, also known as nasal photodisinfection. Since its introduction at Vancouver General Hospital and University of British Columbia Hospital, more than 35,000 patients have been treated to reduce surgical site infections. The International Photodynamic Association honoured the Canadian doctors for their work validating this important new application of antimicrobial PDT that has demonstrated both significant clinical benefits to patients and significant cost reductions for healthcare systems, including:
- 78% reduction in the rate of surgical site infections in spine surgery patients;
- 1 infection prevented for every 18 spine surgery patients treated;
- Annual cost savings of $4.24 million from the avoidance of spine infections; and
- No adverse events were associated with the use of nasal photodisinfection.
These findings were presented by the Vancouver Coastal Health Spine Group at the 2019 Annual Scientific Conference of the Canadian Spine Society, winning the ‘Debbie Scarlet Award for Best Paper.” On the basis of these results, the Vancouver Spine group recommends routine use of nasal photodisinfection for the prevention of surgical site infections.
We congratulate the Dr. Bryce, Dr. Roscoe, and Dr. Wong for their well-deserved global recognition from the International Photodynamic Association for their pioneering work with antimicrobial PDT to improve patient outcomes.
About Photodynamic Therapy and Nasal Photodisinfection
Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) is a combination therapy involving light-activated photosensitizers to diagnose and treat various types and stages of cancers and pre-cancers, macular degeneration and multidrug-resistant infections involving bacteria, viruses and fungi. First developed in the 1980s, PDT has demonstrated superior patient outcomes with considerable cost savings. Over the past 30 years, millions of patients globally have been successfully treated with PDT.
Ondine’s patented nasal photodisinfection is a PDT-based antimicrobial proven to eradicate a broad spectrum of infection-causing pathogens that reside in the noses of patients and caregivers and are easily transmitted from there to wounds, surgical sites, hospital surfaces, and other patients. In four minutes of treatment, it decolonizes nasal pathogens, including drug-resistant bacteria (i.e. MRSA, MSSA), viruses, and fungi (i.e. aspergillus, Candida auris). Because photodisinfection is effective against such a broad spectrum of pathogens and does not generate antimicrobial resistance, expensive and time-consuming pathogen identification is not required. Photodisinfection kills microbes through oxidative disruption of the microbial cell membrane with no known adverse effects to human epithelial tissue or mucosa. Microbes are unable to resist or adapt to this treatment.
About Ondine Biomedical Inc.
Ondine Biomedical Inc. is dedicated to the development of treatment and prevention therapies for a broad-spectrum of multidrug-resistant bacterial, viral and fungal infections. In addition to Ondine’s nasal photodisinfection therapy, other applications of the photodisinfection platform are under development, including treatment of chronic rhinosinusitis, treatment of burns and wounds, and disinfection of endotracheal tubes to reduce the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia.