Evaluación del ácido hipocloroso en el tratamiento de enfermedades bacterianas de la superficie ocular en perros

Abstract

In veterinary medicine, there is a major problem with antibiotic resistance, which has led us to seek treatment options that prevent this resistance in the long term. To test an alternative that reduces antibiotic resistance, the clinical efficacy and economic viability of hypochlorous acid were evaluated in comparison with tobramycin in patients with eye infections. The study involved 20 canine patients, who were divided into two treatment groups: T1, which received 0.01% hypochlorous acid, and T2, which received 0.3% tobramycin. In both groups, ocular swabs were taken before the application of the eye drops and 20 minutes afterwards, thereby measuring the bacterial load in colony-forming units per millilitre (CFU/ml). Cultures and antibiograms demonstrated that Staphylococcus aureus was isolated in all cases as the primary pathogen, whilst Escherichia coli and Streptococcus spp. were isolated in some patients in cases of mixed infections. As a result, it was demonstrated that both treatments significantly reduced the bacterial load. The group treated with HOCl fell from an average of 75.50 CFU/ml to 8.60 CFU/ml, whilst the group treated with tobramycin fell from 74.00 CFU/ml to 9.59 CFU/ml. When a Student’s t-test was performed to compare these two groups, a p-value of 0.4634 was obtained, demonstrating that there were no significant differences between the two treatments. It was concluded that hypochlorous acid is a viable, safe and cost-effective therapeutic alternative for the treatment of bacterial eye infections in dogs, with results similar to those of tobramycin