This book will cover both the evidence for biofilms in many chronic bacterial infections as
well as the problems facing these infections such as diagnostics and treatment regimes. A still
increasing interest and emphasis on the sessile bacterial lifestyle biofilms has been seen
since it was realized that that less than 0.1% of the total microbial biomass lives in the
planktonic mode of growth. The term was coined in 1978 by Costerton et al. who defined the term
biofilm for the first time.In 1993 the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) recognised that
the biofilmmode of growth was relevant to microbiology. Lately many articles have been
published on the clinical implications of bacterial biofilms. Both original articles and
reviews concerning the biofilm problem are available.
