New tools for treating chronic wounds
New tools for treating chronic wounds lead image
When a wound does not heal in a particular set of stages or within three months, it may be considered a chronic wound. They often develop due to underlying conditions like diabetes or hypertension and require medical intervention to prevent infection and inflammation.
Lazarus et al. outlined advances in electrical stimulation, cell and drug delivery systems, and 3D printing that hold great potential for chronic wound treatment. Their review evaluated promising technologies and some of the challenges the field currently faces.
Electrical stimulation is a technique that encourages cell migration toward the injured skin, mimicking the voltage gradient that occurs in non-chronic wounds. Today, typical electrical stimulation therapies that apply an exogenous electric field require hospitalization. The team highlighted small wearable nanogenerators that convert energy from breathing to power AC circuits.
“Cell and drug delivery systems are particularly important in effective treatment of wounds as they enable control of the temporal and spatial distribution of therapeutics in the wound area throughout the healing process,” said author Iris Rivero. “We expect areas such as microneedle-based delivery and adhesive scaffold-based systems will remain a focus in the coming years.”
Scaffolds made possible by 3D printing enable programmable delivery of cells and therapeutics. They can also provide a matrix that facilitates tissue regeneration.
“An exciting application of 3D-bioprinted wound dressings is the creation of smart bandages — modern, personalized wound dressings to accelerate healing and their integration with sensors for real-time monitoring of wound healing progression,” said Rivero.
However, ushering these new technologies through drug-approval processes is time-intensive and costly, so the team suggests modifying already approved devices to fast-track new approaches.
Source: “Engineering tools for stimulating wound healing,” by Emily Lazarus, Lindsay Barnum, Srikanthan Ramesh, Jacob Quint, Mohamadmahdi Samandari, Simon Laflamme, Thomas W. Secord, Tannin Schmidt, Ali Tamayol, and Iris V. Rivero, Applied Physics Reviews (2024). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0173663 .
