Smart Bandages Transform Chronic Wound Care

• Healing Chronic Wounds: Globally, 1.67 per 1,000 people suffer from chronic wounds (NLM, 2023). In 2022, the cost for wound care amounted to $148.65bn in the US, $42.78bn in China, $22.91bn in Japan and $23.33bn in Germany (NIH, 2024). Meanwhile, the advanced wound dressing market (including bandages with drug formulations and other healing properties) was valued at $3.74bn in 2023 (GlobalData, 2024).
  
  
• Remote Monitoring: Smart bandages, equipped with electronic wires and sometimes a battery, monitor difficult-to-treat wounds. They might track moisture levels, which indicate healing (a feature being developed at Northwestern University, Illinois), or detect infection (developed at the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University, New Jersey). Updates will be sent wirelessly to a doctor, who can supervise healing from afar and intervene, if needed.
  
  Remote monitoring can significantly reduce the need for frequent doctor visits for patients with chronic wounds. Meanwhile, increased monitoring enables doctors to quickly address any issues that may lead to serious medical interventions, like amputations.
  
  
• Personalised Wound Care: Researchers are also exploring ways to care for wounds remotely to speed up healing and avoid infection or inflammation. A bandage developed at Caltech in California contains an antibiotic that can be delivered directly to the wound when infection is detected. Furthermore, it can apply a low-level electrical field to stimulate tissue growth – resulting in faster healing. Elsewhere, a team at the University of Glasgow is developing a smart bandage with UV light that can sterilise a wound.

For more, see Medtech’s Next Era.