Antimicrobial Photodynamic Therapy in the Nasal Decolonization of Maintenance Hemodialysis Patients: A Pilot Randomized Trial

Rationale & objective: Infections are an important cause of mortality among patients receiving maintenance hemodialysis. Staphylococcus aureus is a frequent etiological agent, and previous nasal colonization is a risk factor for infection. Repeated antimicrobial decolonization reduces infection in this population but can induce antibiotic resistance. We compared photodynamic therapy, a promising bactericidal treatment that does not induce resistance, to mupirocin treatment among nasal carriers of S aureus.

Study design: Randomized controlled pilot study.

Setting & participants: 34 patients receiving maintenance hemodialysis who had nasal carriage of S aureus.

Interventions: Patients were randomly assigned to decolonization with a single application of photodynamic therapy (wavelength of 660nm, 400mW/cm², 300 seconds, methylene blue 0.01%) or with a topical mupirocin regimen (twice a day for 5 days).

Outcome: Nasal swabs were collected at time 0 (when the carrier state was identified), directly after treatment completion, 1 month after treatment, and 3 months after treatment. Bacterial isolates were subjected to proteomic analysis to identify the species present, and antimicrobial susceptibility was characterized.

Results: All 17 participants randomized to photodynamic therapy and 13 of 17 (77%) randomized to mupirocin were adherent to treatment. Directly after treatment was completed, 12 participants receiving photodynamic therapy (71%) and 13 participants treated with mupirocin (77%) had cultures that were negative for S aureus (risk ratio, 0.92 [95% CI, 0.61-1.38]; P=0.9). Of the patients who had negative cultures directly after completion of photodynamic therapy, 67% were recolonized within 3 months. There were no adverse events in the photodynamic therapy group.

Limitations: Testing was restricted to assessing nasal colonization; infectious complications were not assessed.

Conclusions: Photodynamic therapy is a feasible approach to treating nasal carriage of S aureus. Future larger studies should be conducted to determine whether photodynamic therapy is equivalent to the standard of care with mupirocin.

Funding: Government grant (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development process 3146682020-9).

Trial registration: Registered at ClinicalTrials.gov with study number NCT04047914.