Iranian Researcher Produces Wound Dressing without Need for Frequent Changing

Sepideh Hazari, the executive director of the project to produce the nanocomposite hydrogel wound dressing containing medicine stressed that the product can be used for various types of wounds, a report by Iran Nanotechnology Initiative Council (INIC) said.

“The skin, the largest organ of the human body, plays an important role in homeostasis and preventing the invasion of microorganisms. Therefore, non-toxic, non-allergenic and non-adhesive skin wound dressing is of particular importance,” she added.

She considered wound healing to be the result of the movement, proliferation, division and production of intracellular and extracellular substances, adding, “Many efforts have been made to use new treatment methods that can be used to achieve goals such as speeding up the wound healing process, preventing wound infection, Increasing the tensile strength of the wound bed, reducing scar tissue at the wound site and preventing the patient's disability.”

Referring to traditional wound dressings including wool, cotton, natural and synthetic bandages, and gauze, the director of the project said, “Usually these are dry wound dressings and cause moisture evaporation and dehydration of the wound site. This dehydration of the wound causes gas to make the wound more sticky and painful; therefore, new wound dressings are used for treatment because these dressings also create sufficient moisture around the wound.”

“Considering the importance of wound healing and the fact that not treating open wounds leads to infection, various researches have been conducted on wound healing and various materials have been prepared and introduced to heal wounds. In the meantime, hydrogels can be defined as polymeric materials that not only have the capability to swell in water and retain water in their structure, they do not dissolve in water. These materials have been successfully used in medical fields due to their high potential to keep water, and hydrogels can be used as gels or films,” she added.

“Accordingly, in this plan, we started producing hydrogel wound dressings that contain extracts of medicinal plants and in which organic metal framework nanoparticles are used to improve the properties of hydrogel wound dressings. Since polymer plays an important role in wound dressing, it was very important to use a natural, cost-effective and skin-compatible polymer in the product. Therefore, we used a polymer that come with characteristics such as biodegradability, biocompatibility, non-toxicity and swelling capability,” the researcher further explained, according to the INIC report.

“Given its reasonable price, easy production and the availability of raw materials, the production of this hydrogel dressing is economical. Also, comfortable use and no need to change dressing frequently can play an important role in patient comfort and reducing treatment costs. For that reason, if this project is supported until the phase of clinical tests, we can hope for the commercialization of a high-quality and low-risk product for patients,” Hazari further asserted.

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