Innovative Wound Dressing Dissolves Once the Injury Has Healed

A new wound dressing can be loaded with antibiotics to eradicate infection-causing bacteria, helping to speed up the healing process, and then dissolve when the wound has healed.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU, Israel) developed the novel antibiotic-eluting composite fibers, which are composed of a polyglyconate core and a porous poly(dl-lactic-co-glycolic acid) shell--prepared by the freeze-drying of inverted emulsions--that are loaded with an antibiotic drug, or combination of drugs. The dressing is designed to mimic skin and the way it protects the body, and combines mechanical and physical properties used to elicit a desired release profile of the antibiotics. Thus, when the dressing is placed on the wound, a relatively high but local doses of antibiotics can be administered, avoiding any toxicity issues that arise when the same amount of antibiotic passes through the body. The dressing is now at the early stages of clinical trials on animal models, and has so far passed physical and mechanical tests in vitro and in bacterial inhibition tests in the laboratory. The study describing the new dressing was published in the October 2009 issue of Acta Biomaterialia.

"We've developed the first wound dressing that both releases antibiotic drugs and biodegrades in a controlled manner," said Professor Meital Zilberman, Ph.D., of the department of biomedical engineering. "It solves current mechanical and physical limitations in wound-dressing techniques and gives physicians a new and more effective platform for treating burns and bedsores.”

"Wound dressings must maintain a certain level of moisture while acting as a shield,” added professor Zilberman. "Like skin, they must also enable fluids from the wound to leave the infected tissue at a certain rate. It can't be too fast or too slow. If too fast, the wound will dry out and it won't heal properly. If too slow, there's a real risk of increased contamination.”

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Tel Aviv University