Catheter-related
biofilm infection remains the main problem for
millions of people annually, affecting morbidity, mortality, and quality
of life. Despite the recent advances in the prevention of biofilm
formation, alternative methods for biofilm prevention or eradication
still should be found to avoid traumatic and expensive removal or
catheter replacement. Soft magnetic robots have drawn significant
interest in favor of remote control, fast response, and wide space
for design. In this work, we demonstrated magnetic soft robots as
a minimally invasive, safe, and effective approach to eliminate biofilm
from urethral catheters (20 Fr or 5.1 mm in diameter). Seven designs
of the robot were fabricated (size 4.5 × 15 mm), characterized,
and tested in the presence of a rotating magnetic field. As a proof-of-concept,
we demonstrated the superior efficiency of biofilm removal on the
model of a urethral catheter using a magnetic robot, reaching full
eradication for the octagram-shaped robot (velocity 2.88 ± 0.6
mm/s) at a 15 Hz frequency and a 10 mT amplitude. These findings are
helpful for the treatment of biofilm-associated catheter contamination,
which allows an increase in the catheter wearing time without frequent
replacement and treatment of catheter-associated infections.