Electrical bandages may avert infections
Plastic surgeon Gayle Gordillo has a romantic take on wounds.
“Wounds are kind of like the ocean; you can see them, but can’t know what’s going on inside very easily,” said Dr. Gordillo, who also serves as medical director of wound services for OSU Health System.
It’s difficult for doctors to know why a wound refuses to heal, she said. That’s especially true if bacteria clump together to form an antibiotic-resistant, impossible-to-diagnose slime, known to scientists as biofilm.
But new Ohio State research suggests a special bandage could combat stubborn bacterial biofilm as well as prevent and help treat infections.
Instead of treating patients with antibiotics that can often leave behind bacteria, which are more difficult to kill and expensive to treat, doctors might soon turn to smart electrical bandages, according to the study published this month in the journal Annals of Surgery.
“There are people who take a dozen or more pills every day. How much can the body take?” said Dr. Chandan Sen, director of Ohio State’s Center for Regenerative Medicine & Cell Based Therapies, who led the study. “More new antibiotics is not the fastest solution. We need to have a Plan B.”
Drug-resistant bacteria account for at least three of
every four bacterial infections in the United States and have been called one of the world’s most pressing public health issues. Unless bacterial biofilm is treated, patients either suffer from chronic inflammation or die of sepsis, Sen said.
Once millions of bacteria bond and hug each other on a burn or wound, they form a type of blanket biofilm. At this point, bacteria electrically signal each other to grow a cement-like protective coating that blocks out the body’s immune response and antibiotics.
“The good news for them is they’ve found a format to survive,” Sen said. “Bad news is this is when they will not respond to antibiotics. That’s the health risk.”
The Ohio State study is the first to demonstrate the potential for special wireless electroceutical dressings, made by printing silver and zinc dots onto fabric. When moistened by fluids such as salt water, wound ooze or sweat, the dressing becomes electrically active — no batteries necessary.
The bandage’s electrical field then disrupts and disables electrochemical communication between bacteria, preventing them huddling together.
“In a noisy room where you are talking, I’m talking, no one can understand anything,” Sen said. “That’s the strategy. The signals get Michael Nagel, CEO of Vomaris
scrambled.”
In the study, researchers applied electroceutical or placebo dressings to wound infections in pigs, either two hours or seven days after infection. Twice-weekly dressing treatments lasted about two months.
Researchers found that in both cases the electroceutical dressings successfully treated the bacterial biofilm infection.
Within the next three months, the Ohio State lab will launch a two-year Department of Defensesponsored clinical trial of the technology on human burn wounds, Sen said.
The technology is already FDA-cleared for use in human for wounds such as surgical incisions, diabetic ulcers and
“The technology is so elegantly simple. We feel this is just the beginning.”
bed sores.
Vomaris, an Arizona-based company that partnered with Ohio State on the research, carries the world’s only bioelectric antimicrobial wound dressings, CEO Michael Nagel said.
“The technology is so elegantly simple,” he said. “We feel this is just the beginning.”
Gordillo has used it on her own patients. Dermatologists, general surgeons, burn specialists and other surgeons also may be interested in the unique electroceutical concept for battling nasty infections and new-age bacteria.
“This is a new form of bacteria we didn’t have in the 19th century, but we are still diagnosing with really old tools,” Gordillo said. “They’ve never been challenged with this kind of technology before.”