Smart dressing with built-in antibiotics to treat chronic wounds

Some wounds, known as chronic wounds, overwhelm the regenerative capacity of the skin, heal little or nothing. Faced with this medical problem, American researchers have developed an "electronic dressing". Placed on the wound, he actively monitors the condition and provides appropriate medication to improve his chances of healing. This prototype is presented in a publication of the journal Small .

CHRONIC WOUNDS . The skin has excellent regenerative properties that allow it to heal quickly when injured. Thus, inflammation allows the recruitment of immune cells, which proliferate to overcome infections inevitable by the breach thus opened. However, some traumatic injuries, such as burns or diabetes, for example, cause significant skin damage in which normal healing steps do not occur as expected, leading to persistent infections and amputations. However, 90% of these at-risk wounds are due to a bacterial infection such as Staphylococcus aureus according to the authors of the publication.

A dressing that releases drugs based on pH and temperature detected

In order to support the normal healing process, it is therefore necessary " to rapidly cover the wound and form a barrier against environmental pathogens " and prevent the spread of infection "by early detection followed by antibiotic treatment ", explain the scientists. " Existing wound dressings cover the wound and, in some cases, pbadively release therapeutic molecules ", but they " provide limited information on the state of the healing process ", explain

The researchers therefore designed dressings with heating elements causing the release of drugs. These devices can provide tailored treatments in response to integrated pH and temperature probes that follow infection and inflammation. Why pH and temperature? Simply because in case of infection, the pH climbs above 6.5, while in the healing phase, it falls between 5.5 and 6.5. As for temperature, it climbs during inflammation, a sign that the healing process is underway. The dressing is coupled to a microprocessor, which badyzes the data from the sensors and thus releases drugs on demand by heating the gel that contains them. The whole is covered with a transparent medical bandage. With the exception of the microprocessor, which can be reused, the components have been selected to keep the cost low and are single-use.

Toward intelligent dressings adaptable to wounds?

"Emergence of flexible electronics has allowed us to adopt a new approach to dressings ", said in a statement Sameer Sonkusale, Ph.D. Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the School of Engineering at Tufts University and co-author of the study. " The smart dressing we have created, with pH and temperature sensors and antibiotic drug delivery, can be adapted to a wide range of possibilities ", he added, " One can imagine integrating other detection components, drugs and growth factors that treat different pathologies in response to different markers of healing . " These smart dressings have for the moment been created and tested successfully under conditions in vitro that is to say in the laboratory. Preclinical studies are underway to determine their clinical benefits in vivo (on a living organism) by facilitating healing from traditional dressings and wound care products.