Revolutionizing Wound Care Using 'Smart' Bandages

Although the body can often heal minor injuries on its own, this is not always the case for more serious wounds such as cuts, burns, and scrapes.

Wound healing is a natural process for the body, but more severe injuries like cuts, scrapes, and burns may require additional treatment. Diabetes can interfere with the healing process and create wounds that will not go away and that could become infected and fester.

These kinds of chronic wounds are not just debilitating for the people suffering from them. They are also a drain on healthcare systems, representing a $25 billion financial burden in the United States alone each year.

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‘While the body can naturally heal many types of wounds, this is not always possible for more severe injuries like cuts, burns, and scrapes especially in diabetes.’

Smart' Bandages Are Transforming Wound Monitoring

A new kind of smart bandage developed at Caltech may make the treatment of these wounds easier, more effective, and less expensive. These smart bandages were developed in the lab of Wei Gao, assistant professor of medical engineering, Heritage Medical Research Institute Investigator, and Ronald and JoAnne Willens Scholar.

“There are many different types of chronic wounds, especially in diabetic ulcers and burns that last a long time and cause huge issues for the patient,” Gao says. “There is a demand for technology that can facilitate recovery.”

Unlike a typical bandage, which might only consist of layers of absorbent material, the smart bandages are made from a flexible and stretchy polymer containing embedded electronics and medication.

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The electronics allow the sensor to monitor for molecules like uric acid or lactate and conditions like pH level or temperature in the wound that may be indicative of inflammation or bacterial infection.

The bandage can respond in one of three ways: First, it can transmit the gathered data from the wound wirelessly to a nearby computer, tablet, or smartphone for review by the patient or a medical professional.

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Second, it can deliver an antibiotic or other medication stored within the bandage directly to the wound site to treat the inflammation and infection. Third, it can apply a low-level electrical field to the wound to stimulate tissue growth resulting in faster healing.

Future of Wound Care

In animal models under laboratory conditions, the smart bandages showed the ability to provide real-time updates about wound conditions and the animals’ metabolic states to researchers, as well as offer speed healing of chronically infected wounds similar to those found in humans.

Gao says the results are promising and adds that future research in collaboration with the Keck School of Medicine of USC will focus on improving the bandage technology and testing it on human patients, whose therapeutic needs may be different than those of lab animals.

“We have shown this proof of concept in small animal models, but down the road, we would like to increase the stability of the device but also to test it on larger chronic wounds because the wound parameters and microenvironment may vary from site to site,” he says.

The paper describing the research, “A stretchable wireless wearable bioelectronic system for multiplexed monitoring and combination treatment of infected chronic wounds,” appears in the March 24 issue of the journal Science Advances.

Source-Newswise