Chronic diabetic foot ulcers, which can be notoriously difficult to treat, affect 15% of diabetic patients, causing severe pain and a reduction in quality of life. The complications of diabetic foot ulcers can be severe, necessitating amputation and in some circumstances causing death. A research team of biomedical engineers from Northwestern University has devised a novel therapeutic regenerative bandage, which has antioxidant properties and delivers a protein that hastens the body’s own ability to heal itself.
The regenerative bandage is composed of a thermo-responsive, biocompatible material, which when applied to the wound as a liquid, solidifies into a gel at body temperature. The researchers incorporated a protein, called stromal cell derived factor-1, into the gel. The human body innately uses this protein to elicit the homing of repair cells (stem or progenitor cells) to the site of injury, where they produce new blood vessels, thus increasing blood flow and promoting wound healing. The slow release of this protein from the biocompatible material mimics the body’s innate healing response. The thermo-responsivity of the material enables safe wound dressing changes by rinsing with cool saline, thereby preventing re-injury of the healing tissue during bandage replacement.
Published in the Journal of Controlled Release, the study shows that the regenerative bandage promotes diabetic wound healing four times quicker than a conventional bandage, without side effects. The researchers showed increased blood flow to the wound with the use of the regenerative bandage, suggesting that the biological wound repair process, which is impaired in diabetic patients, is partially restored by the regenerative bandage.
Study in Journal of Controlled Release: Sustained release of stromal cell derived factor-1 from an antioxidant thermoresponsive hydrogel enhances d ermal wound healing in diabetes