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Controlling diabetes is often a daily chore for patients with the disease, but researchers at the University of Central Florida are working to make one type of treatment more manageable.<\/p>\n
They recently received a nearly $400,000 grant from JDRF, formerly the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, to create a cannula with a coating that resists infection and encapsulation.<\/p>\n
Cannulas are tubes inserted into the body under the skin via a needle for uses such as administering drugs, and in the case of diabetes treatment, insulin delivery via a pump. The insulin-infusion cannula suffers from complications of inflammation and risks of infection around the cannula that lead to it being walled off from the body, which is also known as encapsulation, and ultimately reduces the efficiency of insulin delivery.<\/p>\n
As a result, changing the cannula is often needed every one or two days and can be painful and difficult for patients, especially children.<\/p>\n
However, the new coating being developed could allow diabetes patients to go from needing to replace their cannula about every two days to possibly only once a month.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the commercial cannulas that patients are using right now do not really have any mechanism or way to reduce the infection or encapsulation issues,\u201d said Elizabeth Brisbois, a materials science and engineering assistant professor in UCF\u2019s College of Engineering and Computer Science who is leading the research.<\/p>\n
\u201cInfusion-pump therapy can be painful because patients have to insert a new cannula every few days,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re hoping that the new cannula coating will reduce that frequency to once every 30 days. That\u2019s one of our goals.\u201d<\/p>\n
The coating Brisbois is developing uses nitric oxide to ward off infections and prevent encapsulation and is a molecule produced naturally in the body as part of the immune system for tasks such as fighting off bacteria.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we design these coatings to mimic the nitric oxide release that happens in our body, then we can also kill the bacteria and reduce inflammation, and ultimately help make these implanted medical devices more biocompatible,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n