It wasn't looking good for Major.
The terrier had been badly attacked by another dog, and his back leg was severely injured. To make matters worse, a record-breaking snowstorm had made it impossible to get him to the vet for days after he was hurt.
Major needed surgery, and serious infection had already set in, with multiple kinds of dangerous bacteria detected.
It was a level of infection that's notoriously difficult to treat in humans or animals.
"Think of a wildfire taking off," says Nicholas Ashton, PhD, research assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at University of Utah Health. "Once the infection takes hold, the tissue starts breaking down, the bacteria proliferate, and it just keeps getting worse." Pill-based antibiotics are often not enough to control such advanced infections.
But the veterinarian had a different solution on hand: a pouch that could be filled with antibiotics, placed directly into the wound site, and refilled as needed, allowing a continual high dose of antibiotic until Major healed up. And he did. After 10 days of treatment, the infection cleared and he was on the mend from the attack.
The antibiotic reservoir, called the Vetlen Pouch, was developed through research at University of Utah Health.
The pouch has since helped heal animals from dogs and cats to horses while providing an indispensable proof of concept for potential use in people.
The pivotal moment
Dustin Williams, PhD, started on the road to the Vetlen Pouch through profound frustration with the state of infection care. As a researcher trying to find better ways to treat bone infections, he'd spent years working to improve antimicrobial coatings. But coatings can only hold a small, finite amount of antibiotic, no matter how powerful-and once the antibiotic runs out, it's done. It was a seemingly impassable limitation.
Then, Williams, a professor of orthopedic surgery at U of U Health, hit what he calls a "pivotal moment" in his life. He had been thinking about his uncle, who had recently passed, and about the dialysis machinery that had supported him, which had permeable membranes to filter fluid.
Suddenly, Williams was struck by a shockingly simple idea: instead of an antimicrobial coating, make a bag out of a membrane that would let antibiotics seep through, and refill it for as long as needed.
A pouch like that wouldn't only work for people, Williams realized. Its versatility, portability, and ease of use would make it ideal for veterinary applications. This was the beginning of the Vetlen Pouch, which Williams and Ashton invented and produced, then launched with the help of veterinarians, engineers, and business experts. Since then, the pouch has seen countless applications in veterinary medicine, from dogs who have been hit by cars to horses who have been injured jumping fences and cats with hard-to-resolve bone infections.
Helping animals to help people
The researchers say that the results in animals are very promising. "Getting the pouch into those veterinary clinical cases was a big deal for us," Ashton says, "and then to start seeing how it was working-we're really excited."
For hurt or sick animals, getting antibiotics via the pouch can be easier than taking pills. "Cats hate taking pills," Williams says. "But with the pouch, you can just empty it and refill it every day and the cat doesn't even care. And the wound heals up like a champ."
By learning how the pouch works to heal animals, the researchers are building a foundation to use the pouch to heal serious injuries and infections in people.
The researchers hope that the results move into clinical trials in humans soon.
"I come from a very military family, and I want to help heal soldiers," Williams says. "The rates of infection for orthopedic procedures have gone unchanged for 70 years. The need is there. My goal is to heal people."
Ashton adds that every new use case in animals gives him hope for the human impact of his work, as well as the impact for animals. "Veterinarians are using it in all sorts of infections in animals, and every time you see it working there, every one of those could be a way you could use the device in humans," Ashton says. "All of us have companion animals, dogs and horses that we've loved. This is helping animals, and that's helping people."
