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Simulating sutures as obsolete is the main content of science fiction. After all, this technology has been used for at least 5000 years. Since ancient Egypt, medicine certainly should have progressed. Professor Hossam Haick of the Wolfson Department of Chemical Engineering of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology finally turned science fiction into reality. His laboratory succeeded in creating a smart seamless dressing that can glue wounds together, prevent infection, and report the wound conditions directly to the doctor's computer. Their research was published in Advanced Materials.
Current surgical procedures require the surgeon to cut the human body, do what needs to be done, and then suture the wound-this is an invasive operation that destroys the surrounding healthy tissue. As the wound heals, some sutures will degrade on their own—or they should. Others need to be deleted manually. A dressing is then applied to the wound, and medical personnel monitor the wound by removing the dressing to observe signs of infection, such as swelling, redness, and fever. This process is painful for the patient and can disrupt healing, but it is inevitable.
Using these methods also means that infections are usually detected later, because it takes time for obvious signs to appear, and inspections require more time to see them. In developed countries with good sanitary conditions, approximately 20% of patients develop infections after surgery, requiring additional treatment and prolonged recovery time. In developing countries, this number and consequences are much worse.
Before starting the operation, a dressing (very similar to a smart band-aid) developed by Professor Haick's laboratory was applied to the planned incision site. Then an incision will be made through it. After the operation, the ends of the wound will come together, and the dressing will stick together within three seconds to keep the wound closed, similar to stitching. From then on, the dressing will continue to monitor the wound, track the healing process, check for signs of infection, such as changes in temperature, pH, and glucose levels, and report to the medical staff's smartphone or other device. The dressing itself will also release antibiotics to the wound area to prevent infection.
"One night, I watched a movie about future robotics with my children," Professor Heike said. "I thought, if we can really make self-healing sensors?"
Most people give up the idea of their late night movie inspiration. It is not Professor Haick, he is studying and making plans the day after Eureka moment. An article on self-healing sensors was first published in 2015 (read more about it on the Technion website here). At the time, it took nearly 24 hours for the sensor to repair itself. By 2020, the sensor will heal in less than a minute (read the study by Muhammad Khatib, a student in Professor Haick’s laboratory here), but although it has multiple applications, it is not yet biocompatible. That is to say, it cannot be with the skin and blood. The next step is to create a polymer that is both biocompatible and self-healing, and this step was completed by postdoctoral PhD Ning Tang.
The structure of this new polymer is similar to a molecular zipper, made of sulfur and nitrogen: the surgeon’s scalpel opens it; then pressed together, it closes and stays firm. Integrated carbon nanotubes provide conductivity and integration of sensor arrays. In the experiment, wounds closed with smart dressings healed as quickly as wounds closed with sutures, and the infection rate was reduced.
"This is a new wound treatment method," Professor Heike said. "We will introduce the advancement of the fourth industrial revolution-intelligent interconnected devices into the daily treatment of patients."
Professor Heike is the head of the Nanomaterials Device Laboratory (LNBD) and the dean of undergraduate students in the College of Science and Technology. Dr. Tang Ning is a postdoctoral researcher in Professor Heike’s laboratory and conducted this research as part of his scholarship. The current associate professor of Shanghai Jiaotong University.
Tang, N., etc. (2021) High-efficiency self-healing multifunctional dressing with antibacterial activity for seamless wound closure and infection wound monitoring. Advanced materials. doi.org/10.1002/adma.202106842.
Posted in: Equipment/Technical News | Medical News
Tags: blood, glucose, heat, laboratory, medicine, pH, research, skin, sulfur, surgery, wound
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