Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, a North Carolina-based medical center, has announced that studies have conclusively demonstrated that the PhotoxAir purification system significantly reduced airborne bacteria in clinical trials conducted in an emergency department setting.

The PhotoxAir purification system treats indoor air with a proprietary process that utilizes UV light and a unique catalyst.

"The catalytic reduction process in the mobile PhotoxAir unit destroys bacteria, viruses and other contaminants within the unit itself ensuring that no dangerous levels of ozone or formaldehyde are produced," said Dr. Elliot Berman, Ph.D., inventor of the PhotoxAir purification technology.

Analysis of the results showed a very significant reduction (p-value of <0.001) of bacterial load from baseline compared to treatment with the PhotoxAir system. The percent reduction of bacterial load ranged from 26.7% to 54.2% based on sampling location.

"These are encouraging preliminary findings and we will further evaluate this system on other potentially pathogenic airborne contaminants such as viruses and fungi," said Dr. Werner Bischoff, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor, infectious diseases epidemiology and prevention at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and the study's principal investigator.

"Airborne transmission of pathogens, including flu and other viruses, can result in rapid spread of disease,” said Bischoff. “For example, influenza has been responsible for three pandemics in the last century alone, with an overall death toll reaching tens of millions, and continues to cause annual epidemics of varying severity worldwide. The current understanding of aerosol transmission assumes that a number of human pathogens are spread by respiratory secretions and/or infect by way of the respiratory tract. There is a significant need for new technology to help in the battle to reduce airborne transmission of pathogens.”