Assessment of the antimicrobial effect of manuka honey in the implant-related spinal infections in rats [Deneysel i·mplant i·lişkili spinal enfeksiyon modelinde manuka honeyin antibakteriyel etkisinin degerlendirilmesi]

Aim: Implant-related infections in spinal surgical procedures are still an important problem despite all the precautions. Various methods and medicinal products have been applied in order to prevent implant-related infections. "Manuka honey" is a type of honey which has been approved by FDA as a medicinal product. "Manuka honey" has bactericidal and bacteriostatic effects on "methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus" which is the most frequently isolated bacteria. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether as an inexpensive and natural product, honey would prevent infection growth on rats in the implant related infection model. Method: Rats were divided into 3 groups, each of which containing 8 rats:namely, the control, infection and treatment groups. In the 1st group, there was no bacterial proliferation. Planted standard MRSA strain has been detected on rats belonging to the groups 2 and 3. On the vertebral column and implants, bacterial growth was greater in the 2nd group than the 3rd group. Also more bacterial colony growth has been detected in 2nd group as compared to 3rd group. While this difference was deemed significant in implant, the same did not apply to vertebral column. Result: Manuka honey could not completely eradicate the MRSA infection; however, it did decrease the intensity of the infection. If manuka honey, through constituting a different model, could be used in infections regularly, more objective and promising results would be revealed. Moreover, we consider that experimenting "manuka honey" on different bacteria including other Staph. aureus strains would be appropriate through constituting different models