Peceleganan spray effective and safe in wound infection, says study.

Wound infections interfere with the wound-healing process. In addition to intravenous or oral antibiotics, topical antimicrobial agents are frequently used to treat infected skin wounds. Antimicrobial peptide PL-5 spray is a novel topical antimicrobial agent.

The options for topical use remain limited. AMPs are a potential source of pharmaceuticals targeting antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. There needs to be more data in this context.

Researchers did a study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of PL-5 spray for managing skin wound infections. The study points could be summarised as follows:

• There were a total of 220 patients in the study from 27 hospitals.
• There were four groups.
• On D8, the efficacy rate was 100.0%, 96.7%, 96.7% for the 1‰ PL-5, 2‰ PL-5, 4‰ PL-5 groups, respectively.
• The efficacy rate for the control group was 87.5%.
• There was a difference in efficacy rate among the four groups.
• On D5, the efficacy rate for 1‰ PL-5, 2‰ PL-5, and 4‰ PL-5 groups was 100.0%, 93.4%, and 98.3% compared with 82.5% for the control group.
• In pharmacokinetic analysis, the blood concentration of PL-5 was undetectable.

They finally concluded that Antimicrobial peptide PL-5 spray is safe and effective for managing skin wound infections.

The study's strength was the results showing PL-5 (Peceleganan) spray as the first topical AMPs spray agent for treating wound infections. The study has provided more options for clinical treatment, especially in cases of wound infections due to rising antimicrobial resistance.

The study’s limitations include the efficacy of PL-5 could not be applied to serious infections, no comparison with other active control drugs, etc.

Further reading:

Wei, Yating PhD et al. Efficacy and Safety of PL-5 (Peceleganan) Spray for Wound Infections: A Phase IIb Randomized Clinical Trial. Annals of Surgery 277(1):p 43-49, January 2023. | 10.1097/SLA.0000000000005508