Research & technology

Recently, electrospinning technology has gained increasing attention for wound care. SpinCare™ electrospun polymer
nanofibrous temporary epidermal layer is one of the latest developments in the market. Our objective was to explore the potential use
of the new SpinCare™ system for treating burns and wounds.

Schulz A., Fuchs P.C., Heitzmann W., Kanho C.H., Schiefer J.L. (2021). Our initial experience in the customized treatment of donor site and burn wounds with a new nanofibrous temporary epidermal layer. Annals of Burns and Fire Disasters – vol. XXXIV – n. 1.

The aim of this study was to determine the feasibility of a portable electrospinning device for the application of wound dressings.

Used on partial thickness wounds, polymer electrospun nanofiber dressings provide excellent surface topography and are a nontouch, feasible, and safe method to promote wound healing with the potential to reduce wound infections. Such custom-made nanofibrous dressings have implications for the reduction of pain and trauma, number of dressing changes, scarring, and an added cost benefit.

Haik, J., Kornhaber, R., Blal, B., & Harats, M. (2017). The feasibility of a handheld electrospinning device for the application of nanofibrous wound dressings. Advances in wound care, 6(5), 166-174.

Electrospun nanofibres have become an exciting area in textile product development, due to their unique properties such as high surface area and porosity. Indeed, many studies on nanofibres have demonstrated
their feasibility in various applications. For example, nanofibre scaffolds were shown to be promoters for tissue cell adhesion and encapsulators for drugs. In the past decade, numerous studies revealed the areas in which nanofibres can be useful, and capability for scaling-up nanofibre production, which established a starting step in the development of a new generation of textile products. However, many challenges faced today are complicated in nature and require a multidimensional approach to solve, necessitating multifunctional products. This review explored recent efforts in developing a new class of active textiles for wound care. The wound care sector is one of the most advanced in the medical industry, with a massive global demand from patients suffering from wounds, burns, and diseases such as diabetes.
Ensuring satisfactory wound healing is often difficult due to the dynamic nature of the skin, requiring fulfilment of multiple objectives at different stages of the healing process. We demonstrated that by controlling how wound dressing release therapeutic agents, its mechanical responses to the wound and
in aqueous environment, a wound dressing that can interact with different wounds can be developed.

Leung, V., Hartwell, R., Yang, H., Ghahary, A., & Ko, F. (2011). Bioactive nanofibres for wound healing applications. Journal of Fiber Bioengineering and Informatics, 4(1), 1-14.

Wound dressings have experienced continuous and significant changes since the ancient times. The development starts with the use of natural materials to simply cover the wounds to the materials of the present time that
could be specially made to exhibit various extraordinary functions. The modern bandage materials made of electrospun biopolymers contain various active compounds that are beneficial to the healing of wounds.
These materials are fibrous in nature, with the size of fibers segments ranging from tens of nanometers to micrometers. With the right choices of biopolymers used for these fibrous materials, they could enhance the healing
of wounds significantly compared with the conventional fibrous dressing materials, such as gauze. These bandages could be made such that they contain bioactive ingredients, such as antimicrobial, antibacterial, and antiinflammatory agents, which could be released to the wounds enhancing their healing. In an active wound dressing (AWD), the main purpose is to control the biochemical states of a wound in order to aid its healing process. This review provides an overview of different types of wounds, effective parameters in wound healing and different types of wound dressing materials with a special emphasis paid to those prepared by electrospinning.

Zahedi, P., Rezaeian, I., Ranaei‐Siadat, S. O., Jafari, S. H., & Supaphol, P. (2010). A review on wound dressings with an emphasis on electrospun nanofibrous polymeric bandages. Polymers for Advanced Technologies, 21(2), 77-95.

Advanced therapeutic dressings that take active part in wound healing to achieve rapid and complete healing of chronic wounds is of current research interest. There is a desire for novel strategies to achieve expeditious wound healing because of the enormous financial burden worldwide. This paper reviews the current state of wound healing and wound management products, with emphasis on the demand for more advanced forms of wound therapy and some of the current challenges and driving forces behind this demand. The
paper reviews information mainly from peer-reviewed literature and other publicly available sources such as the US FDA. A major focus is the treatment of chronic wounds including amputations, diabetic and leg ulcers, pressure sores, and surgical and traumatic wounds (e.g., accidents and burns) where patient immunity is low and the risk of infections and complications are high. The main dressings include medicated moist dressings, tissue-engineered substitutes, biomaterials-based biological dressings, biological and naturally derived dressings, medicated sutures, and various combinations of the above classes. Finally, the review briefly discusses possible prospects of advanced wound healing including some of the emerging physical approaches such as hyperbaric oxygen, negative pressure wound therapy and laser wound healing, in routine clinical care.

Boateng, J., & Catanzano, O. (2015). Advanced therapeutic dressings for effective wound healing—a review. Journal of pharmaceutical sciences, 104(11), 3653-3680.

Electrospinning is an economical and relatively simple method to produce continuous and uniform nanofibers from almost any synthetic and many natural polymers. Because of the high specific surface area, tunable pore size, and flexibility, the nanofibrous membranes are finding an increasingly wide range of applications. Some particular attention has been devoted to antibacterial nanofibers for applications such as wound dressings. A variety of biocides, e.g., antibiotics, quaternary ammonium salts, triclosan, biguanides, (silver, titanium dioxide, and zinc oxide) nanoparticles and chitosan have been incorporated by various techniques into nanofibers that exhibit strong antibacterial activity in standard assays. However, the small diameters of the nanofibers also mean that the incorporated biocides are often burst released once the materials are submerged in an aqueous solution. Nevertheless, several strategies, such as core‐sheath structure of the nanofiber, covalent bonding of the biocide on the fiber surface and adsorption of the biocide in nanostructures, can be utilized to sustain the release over several days. This review summarizes recent development in the fabrication of antibacterial nanofibers, the release profiles of the biocides and their applications in in vivo systems.

Gao, Y., Bach Truong, Y., Zhu, Y., & Louis Kyratzis, I. (2014). Electrospun antibacterial nanofibers: Production, activity, and in vivo applications. Journal of Applied Polymer Science, 131(18).