Determination of the silver ion release from polyurethanes enriched with silver

The Erlanger silver catheter was de, eloped in order to reduce the! risk of infection from long-term catheters by means of silver ions, which are know n to have antibacterial properties. This is achieved by incorporating silve r into polyurethane catheters by means of a special procedure. The aim of t his materials science study was to verify the release of silver ions from t he polyurethanes. Static experiments were carried out following the usual n orms, Clinically relevant dynamic esperiments which were designed and const ructed at this institute were also performed, The eluates from both experim ents were; analanalyzed by anodic stripping,voltammetry Polyurethanes fille d,with silver, as used in the Erlanger silver catheter, release silver in s tatic as well as in dynamic experiments, If the experimentally determined r eleases are converted to the usual catheter length of 30 cm, the release is about 0.1 mu g/l This lies in the order of concentrations that ha,ve been reported in the literature to be antibacterial.