News • Electric wound care

This E-bandage could speed up wound healing

Skin has a remarkable ability to heal itself. But in some cases, wounds heal very slowly or not at all, putting a person at risk for chronic pain, infection and scarring. Now, researchers have developed a self-powered bandage that generates an electric field over an injury, dramatically reducing the healing time for skin wounds in rats.

Photo
A wound covered by an electric bandage on a rat’s skin (top left) healed faster than a wound under a control bandage (right).
Source: ACS

They report their results in ACS Nano. Chronic skin wounds include diabetic foot ulcers, venous ulcers and non-healing surgical wounds. Doctors have tried various approaches to help chronic wounds heal, including bandaging, dressing, exposure to oxygen and growth-factor therapy, but they often show limited effectiveness. As early as the 1960s, researchers observed that electrical stimulation could help skin wounds heal. However, the equipment for generating the electric field is often large and may require patient hospitalization. Weibo Cai, Xudong Wang and colleagues wanted to develop a flexible, self-powered bandage that could convert skin movements into a therapeutic electric field.

To power their electric bandage, or e-bandage, the researchers made a wearable nanogenerator by overlapping sheets of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), copper foil and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The nanogenerator converted skin movements, which occur during normal activity or even breathing, into small electrical pulses. This current flowed to two working electrodes that were placed on either side of the skin wound to produce a weak electric field. The team tested the device by placing it over wounds on rats’ backs. Wounds covered by e-bandages closed within 3 days, compared with 12 days for a control bandage with no electric field. The researchers attribute the faster wound healing to enhanced fibroblast migration, proliferation and differentiation induced by the electric field.


Source: American Chemical Society

20.12.2018

Read all latest stories

Related articles

Photo

News • Study sheds new light

How diabetes can lead to poor wound healing

A newly discovered mechanism involving exosomes can drive inflammation and impair healing of wounds in diabetes patients, according to a new study led by University of Pittsburgh and UPMC researchers.

Photo

News • Women's health

Cadmium levels in urine linked to endometriosis

Women with a history of endometriosis had higher concentrations of cadmium in their urine compared to those without that diagnosis, a new study finds, linking the toxic metal to the condition.

Photo

News • Women's health

Why obesity makes ovarian cancer more deadly

A new study led by researchers from the University of Notre Dame links a high body mass index (BMI) to alterations in the structure and environment of cancerous tumors.

Related products

Sarstedt – Low DNA Binding Micro Tubes

Research Use Only

Sarstedt – Low DNA Binding Micro Tubes

SARSTEDT AG & CO. KG
Shimadzu – CLAM-2030 CL (IVD)/ CLAM-2030 (RUO)

Mass Spectrometry

Shimadzu – CLAM-2030 CL (IVD)/ CLAM-2030 (RUO)

Shimadzu Europa GmbH
Shimadzu – LCMS-8060NX CL (IVD) / LCMS-8060 NX (RUO)

Mass Spectrometry

Shimadzu – LCMS-8060NX CL (IVD) / LCMS-8060 NX (RUO)

Shimadzu Europa GmbH
Shimadzu – MALDImini-1

Research Use Only

Shimadzu – MALDImini-1

Shimadzu Europa GmbH
teamplay Images

Portal Solutions

Siemens Healthineers · teamplay Images

Siemens Healthcare GmbH
Subscribe to Newsletter