Dr. Robert Whitfield explains how bacteria from infections like pneumonia or skin cuts enter the bloodstream and colonize implants, which lack blood flow and immune defenses. A 2024 study of 694 explanted devices found Staphylococcus epidermidis and Cutibacterium acnes as the main culprits, forming biofilms the body cannot clear.
Right. But outside of that, we'll just go through the course of life. You know, that is the most likely. Somebody gets a pneumonia, somebody gets a cut that gets infected, somebody gets a urinary tract infection, a bowel infection, whatever the thing is that they get, bacteria gets in the bloodstream. And then because the foreign body, the medical device, does not have your immune system, if you wanna think of it like that, it can't respond. It just, things attach to it. Then your body can't remove them. Right. There's no blood flow. There's no way for that surveillance to happen. And we published a big series in September of '24 of 694 consecutive explant specimen samples. So we take like a thumbnail piece of the scar tissue, the patient's scar tissue off, and send it off and get it analyzed for DNA. So it's a PCR test that looks at 150 types of bacteria, fungus, and mycobacterium. Long story short is there's two bacteria that predominantly are responsible. One is Staph epidermidis, which is found in our skin. It's colonized. And the other is Cutibacterium acnes, which is commonly found in the face, uh, shoulders, chest, and neck skin. Those are the two most common. They readily can stick to and form even a more difficult biofilm for your body to take care of. Mm-hmm.
