Wound management

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Video • Cell coordination explored

Why wound-healing comes in waves

How do cells in our bodies ask for directions? Without any maps to guide them, they still know where to go to heal wounds and renew our bodies. Edouard Hannezo and his group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) together with Tsuyoshi Hirashima and his group at Kyoto University just published a new study in Nature Physics that shows how mechanical and chemical waves…

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News • Antibacterial cellulose

A wound dressing that kills bacteria

In order to combat bacterial wound infections, Empa researchers have developed cellulose membranes equipped with antimicrobial peptides. Initial results show: The skin-friendly membranes made of plant-based materials kill bacteria very efficiently. If germs invade a wound, they can trigger a long-lasting infection that may fail to heal or even spread throughout the body, leading to…

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Video • Smart surface

Artificial skin heals wounds and makes robots sweat

Imagine a dressing that releases antibiotics on demand and absorbs excessive wound exudate at the same time. Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) hope to achieve just that, by developing a smart coating that actively releases and absorbs multiple fluids, triggered by a radio signal. This material is not only beneficial for the healthcare industry, it is also very promising in…

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News • Woundcare in the age of antibiotic resistance

Next generation wound gel to prevent infections

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have developed a new hydrogel based on the body’s natural peptide defense. It has been shown to prevent and treat infections in wounds. The formulation kills multi-resistant bacteria, something that is increasing in importance with antibiotic resistance growing globally. “The ability to effectively heal wounds is key for our survival in evolutionary…

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Article • Healthcare in a conflict zone

Wound care in wars

War wounds sustained by frontline soldiers or civilians usually need urgent, specialist, trauma surgery. Over the last two decades much has been learned from injuries sustained during conflicts in, for example, Afghanistan and Iraq. In early June, during a Catastrophe and War Wound key session at the European Wound Management Association conference in Gothenburg, specific remedial approaches to…

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News • Diabetic feet prevention

Smart insole detects signs of foot ulcer

Stevens Institute of Technology has signed an exclusive licensing agreement with Bonbouton, giving the company the right to use and further develop a graphene sensing system that detects early signs of foot ulcers before they form, so diabetic patients can access preventative healthcare and manage their health.

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Video • Hope for new skin grafts

3D printed living skin complete with blood vessels

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a way to 3D print living skin, complete with blood vessels. The advancement, published in Tissue Engineering Part A, is a significant step toward creating grafts that are more like the skin our bodies produce naturally. “Right now, whatever is available as a clinical product is more like a fancy Band-Aid,” said Pankaj Karande, an…

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News • Nozzle-free electrospinning

Synthetic skin could aid wound healing

Engineers at the University of Edinburgh have devised a fabric dressing whose thickness and elasticity can be custom-matched to specific areas of the body. The material is able to be absorbed by the skin’s own tissue as it heals. Two synthetic materials are blended to produce nanometre-sized fibres – thousands of times thinner than a hair – which can be fabricated in minutes. Edinburgh…

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Article • Wound care

Healing helped by fish skin or bio-ink

Many methods to treat current or chronic wounds are available. However, the differences in general conditions prevailing in hospital, or for out-patient care, make effective therapy more difficult. Each patient also has other preconditions for healing. Improved communication between everyone involved in the treatment would benefit patients. We see a lot of progress with the issue of “wounds”,…

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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. They report their results in ACS Nano. Chronic skin wounds…

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Sponsored • Wound closure

Gluing outdoes stitching

Results after suturing are not always aesthetic. Wound treatment with tissue adhesives offer a quick healing process, good tolerance and low scarring. Among these, EPIGLU is an especially fast polymerising product, an Ethyl-2-cyanoacrylate with good closure properties even for injuries that are under tension, Meyer-Haake GmbH Medical Innovations reports: ‘The product, which has been on the…

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Sponsored • 'Zero pressure'

Pressure mattresses to avoid ulceration

A UK company that specialises in the development and manufacture of ‘zero pressure’ technology is showing its full range of mattress solutions at Medica this year. Over the last few years, Rober Ltd of Chesterfield, has invested heavily in R&D to develop a complete range of pressure ulcer mattresses that cater for a variety of needs, including patients who are immobile, bariatric or have…

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Article • Cut device-related pressure ulcers

Biomedical designers must increase safety

Whilst acknowledging that state-of-the-art bioengineering approaches are being applied in preventing Medical Device Related Pressure Ulcers (MDRPUs), Professor Amit Gefen, from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Tel Aviv University, believes there are gaps in knowledge and technology in this area and therefore more must be done to improve patient care and avoid additional healthcare…

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News • Scar evaluation

Surgical scarring: Why patients and doctors often disagree

When it comes to the physical scars surgery leaves behind, a new study shows patients and doctors often don’t assess their severity the same way. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found patients and physicians disagreed in their scar evaluations 28 percent of the time, with patients more likely to focus on the depth of the scar while physicians…

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News • No more stitches

This surgical glue could transform surgeries and save lives

Sutures and staples are the traditional methods for closing surgical incisions and wounds in emergency situations. However, these methods can be inadequate in complex surgeries and cannot make an air-tight or liquid-tight seal on a lung or artery wound or incision. Now researchers funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) have created a surgical glue that…

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News • Wound care

European launch of handheld imaging technology

Smith & Nephew, the global medical technology business, announces the European launch of MolecuLight i:X, the easy to use, handheld imaging device that instantly measures wound surface area and visualises the presence and distribution of potentially harmful bacteria in wounds. Currently wound assessments are made with the naked eye which can lack the accuracy required to most effectively…

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News • Hydrogel

Why this spaghetti-like jumble may one day save your life

Princeton researchers have discovered that when water flows around long plastic fibers, the flexible fiber strands tangle like a plate of spaghetti. Instead of a muddled mess, however, this product is in fact a highly useful material known as a hydrogel. Investigated for half a century, hydrogels are increasingly finding uses in areas including artificial tissue engineering, sustained drug…

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Video • Cell signals

Wound healing: more complex than you think

In a sharp and pointy world, wound healing is a critical and marvelous process. Despite a tremendous amount of scientific study, many outstanding mysteries still surround the way in which cells in living tissue respond to and repair physical damage. One prominent mystery is exactly how wound-healing is triggered: A better understanding of this process is essential for developing new and improved…

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Article • Skin protection

Self-improving DNA sun screen developed

Researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York have developed a coating made out of DNA that gets better at protecting skin from Ultraviolet light the more it is exposed to the sun and which could potentially be used as wound covering for extreme environments.

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News • Wound Management

Using fat to help wounds heal without scars

Doctors have found a way to manipulate wounds to heal as regenerated skin rather than scar tissue. The method involves transforming the most common type of cells found in wounds into fat cells – something that was previously thought to be impossible in humans. Researchers began this work at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, which led to a large-scale, multi-year…

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Article • Wound management

Laser-assisted wound closure for oral and maxillofacial surgery

Partners from Germany, Israel, Latvia and Italy will systematically advance the use of biophotonic technologies for industrial, clinical and medical applications in the Biophotonic Technologies for Tissue Repair (BI-TRE) project. As part of the transnational BiophotonicsPlus initiative, the German consortium commenced its activities on September 1, 2015. The goal is to supply oral and…

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