Preliminary study of anti-infective function of a copper-bearing stainless steel

In this study the copper (Cu)-bearing stainless steel was developed to reduce the incidence of implant-associated infections in clinical areas. A 317L austenitic stainless steel containing 4.5% Cu (317L-Cu SS) was designed and fabricated, and its anti-infective function was preliminarily studied both in vitro and in vivo by means of antibacterial test, confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observations, and animal implantation. The results indicated that the 317L-Cu SS possessed strong antibacterial rates against both Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, and showed anti-infective ability by inhibiting the formation of bacterial bio-film on surface of the steel due to the release of Cu ions from the steel surface. The microbiological and histological evaluations from animal implantation further proved that the 317L-Cu SS could obviously reduce the happening of bacterial infection, and is potential to be used as a new class of surgical implant material with anti-infective function.