A textile device for the therapy of patients with burn wounds by the use of a drug delivery from a hydrogel to dermis

Abstract

The paper proposes a textile device for patients with large area burn wounds consisting of an assembly made up of a knitted backing layer, a hydrogel, with an antibiotic content, as a second layer and a membrane with controlled porosity located directly at the interface with the wound. The knit is the material support with a supporting clothing role, but also as a solution tank. The hydrogel has a keratin structure obtained from human hair with advanced swelling capacity and porosity. The study proposes the use of silver sulfadiazine (SSD), an antibiotic used in the topical therapy of burn wounds. The work optimizes the degree of swelling, evaluates the porosity of the hydrogel and designs the support garment for wound therapy. The optimal parameters to obtain the maximal swelling degree are: duration of hydrolytic reaction 180 min, volume of hydrogen peroxide 3.7 mL and duration of oxidation 90–125 min. Based on these optimal parameters one can obtain swelling degrees higher than 1000%. The device proposed is reusable and supports the SSD diffusion to wound.