• Posted August 8, 2024

Cheap, High-Tech 'Electric Bandage' Speeds Wound Healing

Newly developed battery-powered electric bandages could help wounds heal more quickly, a new study reports.

In animal testing, wounds treated with electric bandages healed 30% faster than wounds treated with conventional bandages, researchers reported Aug. 7 in the journal Science Advances.

The bandages could be a game-changer in treating slow-healing wounds caused by diabetes and other chronic illnesses, researchers say. Those sorts of wounds significantly increase a person’s risk of amputation and death.

“Our goal here was to develop a far less expensive technology that accelerates healing in patients with chronic wounds,” said researcher Amay Bandodkar, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at North Carolina State University.

“We also wanted to make sure that the technology is easy enough for people to use at home, rather than something that patients can only receive in clinical settings,” Bandodkar noted in a university news release.

The study is part of a larger Defense Department-funded effort to accelerate wound healing through different types of innovative dressings, researchers said.

These electric bandages have electrodes on one side and a small water-powered battery on the other, researchers said.

The dressing is applied so that the electrodes contact the wound, and the battery is activated with a drop of water. The bandage then produces an electric field for several hours.

“That electric field is critical, because it’s well established that electric fields accelerate healing in chronic wounds,” said lead researcher Rajaram Kaveti, a post-doctoral researcher at NC State.

The electrodes are flexible, so they can maintain contact with deep and irregularly shaped wounds, researchers said.

“We tested the wound dressings in diabetic mice, which are a commonly used model for human wound healing,” said lead researcher Maggie Jakus, a doctoral student in biomedical engineering at Columbia University.

“We found that the electrical stimulation from the device sped up the rate of wound closure, promoted new blood vessel formation, and reduced inflammation, all of which point to overall improved wound healing,” Jakus said.

Importantly, the bandages are cheap. “We’re talking about a couple of dollars per dressing in overhead costs,” Bandodkar said.

Researchers next plan to fine-tune the electrical field produced by the bandage, in preparation for clinical trials in humans.

The research is still preliminary and experts note that animal research does not always pan out in humans.

“Diabetic foot ulceration is a serious problem that can lead to lower extremity amputations,” said researcher Aristidis Veves, a professor of surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Center in Boston. “There is urgent need for new therapeutic approaches, as the last one that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration was developed more than 25 years ago.”

The new bandage could “revolutionize the management of diabetic foot ulcers,” Veves said.

More information

Michigan Medicine has more on diabetic foot ulcers.

SOURCE: North Carolina State University, news release, Aug. 7, 2024