An Evaluation of Biofield Treatment on Susceptibility Pattern of Multidrug Resistant Stenotrophomonas maltophilia: An Emerging Global Opportunistic Pathogen

What is it about?

Stenotrophomonas maltophilia (S. maltophilia) is a Gram-negative bacillus, an opportunistic pathogen, particularly among nosocomial infections. Multi-drug resistant strains are associated with very high rate of morbidity and mortality in severely immunocompromised patients. Present study was designed to evaluate the effect of biofield treatment against multidrug resistant S. maltophilia. Clinical sample of S. maltophilia was collected and divided into two groups i.e. control and biofield treated which were analyzed after 10 days with respect to control. The following parameters viz. susceptibility pattern, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), biochemical studies and biotype number of both control and treated samples were measured by MicroScan Walk-Away® system. The results showed an overall change of 37.5% in susceptibility pattern and 39.4% in biochemical study while 33.3% changes in MIC values of tested antimicrobials after biofield treatment. Further, the treated group of S. maltophilia has also shown a significant change in biochemical reactions followed by its biotype number as compared to control group. Biochemical reactions of treated group showed negative reaction to acetamide and positive reactions to colistin, glucose, adonitol, melibiose, arabinose, nitrate, oxidation-fermentation, raffinose, rhaminose, sorbitol, sucrose, and Voges-Proskauer as compared with control. The biofield treatment showed an alteration in MIC values of amikacin, amoxicillin/K-clavulanate, chloramphenicol, gatifloxacin, levofloxacin, moxifloxacin, ceftazidime, cefotetan, ticarcillin/K-clavulanate, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole. Altogether, data suggest that biofield treatment has significant effect to alter the sensitivity pattern of antimicrobials and biotype number against multidrug resistant strain of S. maltophilia.

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Why is it important?

During the last few decades, due to the continuous deployment of antimicrobial drugs, incidence of microbial resistance has increased leads to generating multi-drug-resistance (MDR) organisms (MDROs). MDR strains and its related infections have been increased suddenly, which leads to ineffective treatment and risk of spreading infections. Although, MDR development is a natural phenomenon, but extensive rise in the number of immunocompromised patients leads to examine the possible source and elucidate the molecular mechanism of organism during infection [1,2]. Serious threats in front of researchers are the resistant pattern of Gram negative pathogens for almost all available antimicrobials. Reason being the MDR pumps, plasmids carrying resistance genes and involvement of different transfer mechanisms of resistance [3]. S. maltophilia is an aerobic, nonfermentative and Gram-negative bacterium regarded as global emerging MDRO in hospitalized or immunocompromised patients [4]. S. maltophilia is not highly virulent pathogen, but it has the ability to colonize in human respiratory tract in hospitals responsible for crude mortality rates i.e. 14%-69% with bacteremia [5,6]. Currently, no such alternative approaches for altering the sensitivity pattern of antimicrobials are available against MDROs, biofield treatment may be a new approach to alter the susceptibility pattern of S. maltophilia. Now a days, acceptance and applications of complementary and alternative therapies are at global level. Many alternative remedies including biofield energy treatment (such as Qi gong, and Tai chi) have recently found their way into the medical mainstream and is widely accepted by most of the healthcare professionals [7]. Alternative remedies trace the root cause of diseases or impairment. Recently, Lucchetti et al. reported the effective impact of spiritual healing on inhibiting the growth of bacterial cultures [8], suggests that biofield treatment could be a new and effective treatment approach. Still, this treatment is not much explored in mainstream medicine and research; it should continue to be experimentally examined in different biological fields. Bio-electromagnetism is a branch which helps to detect the electric, electromagnetic, and magnetic phenomena originates in biological tissues. According to universal principles of Maxwell's equations and principle of reciprocity, it defines electromagnetic connections related to human biofield [9]. Thus, the cumulative effect of bio-magnetic field and electric field that surrounds the human body is defined as biofield. The energy associated with this field is considered as biofield energy and it can be monitored by using techniques such as electromyography (EMG), electrocardiography (ECG) and electroencephalogram (EEG) [10]. However, the energy can exists in several forms such as kinetic, potential, electrical, magnetic, and nuclear. Similarly, the human nervous system consists of the energy and chemical information in the form of electrical signals. Mr. Mahendra Trivedi’s biofield treatment has considered a significant impact and reported in different fields like growth and yield of different crops in agriculture [11,12], changed atomic and crystalline characteristics of metals [13,14] and in microbiology, altered the sensitivity and antimicrobial pattern of pathogenic microbes [15-17]. There are very few reports on biofield treatment against sensitivity pattern of MDROs. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the impact of biofield treatment on MDR strain of S. maltophilia. The change in antimicrobial susceptibility pattern, MIC, biochemical reactions, and biotype number were studied and compared with control group.

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