Spiderman plaster helps wounds heal faster
A‘ spider gun’ t hat weaves a web on top of wounds could be a new way to protect them from infection and speed up healing. The device fires fine threads that are 200 times thinner than a strand of hair, enabling doctors to create tailor-made dressings f or patients with open wounds, including burns, leg ulcers and following surgery.
The new technology creates fibres that have similar properties to the skin’s natural healing cells.
And as well as the web offering tailormade dressings, because it can be fired from a distance the medical staff applying it do not require physical contact with the skin, which carries the potential for infection.
Typically, most dressings are applied by hand, which introduces the risk of infection from bugs that may be on the skin. And they come in fixed sizes, which means they won’t be a perfect fit for the majority of wounds.
The weight of the dressing can also be a problem, as some large wounds such as deep leg ulcers require so many layers of a dressing that they cause discomfort to the patient.
Wound healing is a complex process, and a key player is the extracellular matrix — a material secreted by skin cells that aids the repair process. its main component is the protein collagen, which forms THe the scaffolding of the skin.
new ‘spider gun’ creates an imitation of the extracellular matrix, using a process known as electrospinning, where an electric current in the gun causes a chemical reaction in a special liquid inside the gun cannister.
This turns the liquid into fibres that are ejected from the gun’s nozzle. These fibres are designed to mimic the structure and role of the extracellular matrix.
The fibres are absorbent and can be woven into a web to cover a vast surface area, which makes it an ideal material for covering wounds. The idea is that once in place, the ‘web’ provides a structure around which the natural repair cells can heal the wound and grow new tissue.
normal wound healing starts with red blood cells moving in to form a blood clot, stopping any bleeding and sealing the wound.
Then white blood cells kill off any infectious substances that entered while the wound was exposed. next, collagen is delivered to replace lost tissue. The outer skin layers can then start contracting and close the wound completely.
if the wound is exposed, it can be contaminated by bugs, which then slow down the healing process.
The web dressing can be tailored to any wound size and can be applied to any area of the body. Because the gun i s portable, it can be used by patients at home as well as by doctors.
When the wound has healed, the web is painlessly peeled off.
in a new trial at sheba Medical Centre in israel, 40 patients with skin wounds will have the web dressing, known as the spinner, or standard absorbent dressings, and their skin will be monitored for 21 days.
The web will be fired for roughly one minute from a distance of 8 in to generate enough fibres to cover the wound sites.
‘This is an exciting concept,’ says stella vig, a consultant vascular surgeon at Croydon university Hospital. ‘This may well increase wound healing, saving the patients untold misery as well as saving the nHs much-needed money.’
MeAnWHiLe, a dressing that is impregnated with honey is being tested as a treatment for ulcers. researchers at CHru de nimes hospital in France are giving 70 patients a dressing which contains honey or conventional bandages for three months, and will monitor the change in wound size. Honey is thought to have wound healing and antibacterial properties.