A research team from Sichuan University has designed a new type of wound dressing that introduces electrical stimulation therapy into the wound dressing to create a moist environment while using electrical stimulation to accelerate healing.
The upper part is made of tree-like nanofibers, and the lower part is made of a double-network conductive hydrogel with added iron ions and catechol. This part is used to fit around the wound to ensure it is sealed and moisturized, while allowing electrical stimulation to reach the wound.
The structure of nanofibers has better piezoelectric and mechanical properties than traditional fiber structures. The hydrogel moiety proceeds through the polymerization of acrylamide and gelatin networks. Iron ions can increase the conductivity of hydrogels as electron conduction carriers.
The dressing was applied to SD rats with full-thickness skin defects to observe its promoting effect on wound healing. The picture shows the results of a control experiment using new dressings, hydrogels and gauze.
In the first week, the wound closure using the new dressing reached nearly 80%, which was much higher than the hydrogel control group (53%) and the gauze control group (36%). The research team also performed staining observations on the wounds, as well as immunoassays for BFGF, PDGF and VEGF. It was found that compared with wounds using gauze and hydrogel, wounds using the new dressing had more collagen fibers, which were arranged in an orderly and dense manner.