Topical Ozone Effective Treatment for MRSA Skin Infection

Written by Joyce Smith, BS. Ozone therapy proves to be a potential treatment for S. aureus and MRSA skin infections.

Bacterial skin infections, commonly treated with antibiotics, now present a greater global challenge for clinical practices due to the development of antibiotic resistant organisms, in particular methicillin- and  vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) ¹.  Ozone is a colorless, odorless reactive gas that differs from normal oxygen (O2) in that it has three atoms in its molecule (O3

Previous studies have shown ozone therapy to be effective against S. aureus and MRSA strains in vitro ², and to have antibacterial effects for the in vivo treatment of peritonitis ³. It has also been effective for MRSA skin infections when used in combination with other drugs; however, its ability as a standalone treatment for MRSA skin infections has not yet been investigated.  The objective of this study ⁴ was to evaluate the microbicidal effects of ozone therapy on S. aureus and MRSA in vitro and to determine its clinical efficacy as a topical therapy on patients with MRSA skin infections.

Individual bacterial samples of S. aureus and MRSA were impregnated with either ozonated oil or ozonated water and plated onto agar medium, then incubated at 37˚C for 16-18 hours. Results demonstrated that ozonated oil can sterilize up to 98% of S. aureus in 5 min (P<0.0001) and up to 98% of MRSA in 15 min (P<0.0001) while ozonated water (1 mg/l) can sterilize 100% of both S. aureus and MRSA in one minute. The controls (unozonated oil and water) were for both ineffective.

Two patients with confirmed skin MRSA infections were recruited for the in vivo portion of this study. No antibiotics or other drugs were administrated during the ozone therapy, yet both cases of skin MRSA infection were completely healed with ozone therapy. Treating an ulcerated hand lesion in an 8 year old boy and a painful abscessed left calf muscle in a 21 year old male with a combination of ozonated water and ozonated oil resulted in complete healing of the hand lesion within 12 days and 70% healing of the calf muscle within one month with complete healing of the muscle by the end of the second month. No antibiotics or other drugs were administrated during the ozone therapy.

Ozone, an unstable molecule, rapidly decays to O2 and releases a single oxygen atom that reacts with  the  bacterial cell membrane, attacking the cellular components, and interrupting  the normal cell activity to destroy the  bacteria ⁵. It is used in conjunctivitis and keratitis ⁶, peritonitis ³,  and surgical sepsis ⁷.  In wound healing it promotes angiogenesis and tissue regeneration and reduces pain and swelling ⁸.  This study suggests it is a potential treatment for S. aureus and MRSA skin infection. The authors caution that ozone therapy is contraindicated in several diseases such as Blood Coagulation Failure, Bleeding Organs, Thrombocytopenia, Ozone Alergia, Hemorrhagic or Apoplectic Stroke, and Ozone Intolerance ¹⁰.

Source: Song, Mingsheng, Qinghai Zeng, Yaping Xiang, Lihua Gao, Jian Huang, Jinhua Huang, Kathy Wu, and Jianyun Lu. “The antibacterial effect of topical ozone on the treatment of MRSA skin infection.” Molecular medicine reports 17, no. 2 (2018): 2449-2455.

© The Author(s) 2017. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)© License.

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Posted August 5, 2019.

Joyce Smith, BS, is a degreed laboratory technologist. She received her bachelor of arts with a major in Chemistry and a minor in Biology from  the University of Saskatchewan and her internship through the University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine and the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She currently resides in Bloomingdale, IL.

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