Electric Wound Dressing Could Help Injuries Heal Faster

An electric wound dressing can help heal injuries faster than existing methods, according to tests in rats. From a report: Previous research has found that applying electric fields across a cut can speed up wound healing, but this usually requires large and specialised equipment. Because of this, Guang Yao at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in Chengdu and his colleagues wanted to develop an alternative that could be applied in a similar way to traditional wound dressings. "Non-invasive, efficient, cost-effective and convenient approaches are always desired for treating skin wounds," he says. The dressing is made up of four layers. The bottom layer is made from an electrically charged plastic that produces an electric field through static contact with the skin. Next is a layer of flexible silicone rubber gel that moulds to the skin's curvature, and then a layer of shape memory alloy that pushes the two sides of the wound together. A second layer of flexible gel completes the dressing, which is just 0.2 millimetres thick in total. The team tested the wound-healing properties of the dressing on around 50 rats. They anaesthetised the rats before giving each either a 1-centimetre-long linear wound or a 0.8-centimetre-diameter circular wound and then either applying the new dressing, applying a standard dressing or leaving them to heal by themselves.

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