Thermal shock susceptibility and regrowth of Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms.

Biofilms on implanted medical devices cause thousands of patients each year to undergo multiple surgeries to remove and replace the implant, driving billions of dollars in increased health care costs due to the lack of viable treatment options for in situ biofilm eradication. Remotely activated localised heating is under investigation to mitigate these biofilms; however, little is known about the temperatures required to kill the biofilms. To better understand the required parameters this study investigated the thermal susceptibility of biofilms as a function of their fluidic and chemical environment during growth, as well as their propensity for regrowth following thermal shock.