You cut yourself. You put on a bandage. In a week or so, your wound heals.
Most people take this routine for granted. But for the more than 8.2 million Americans who have chronic wounds, it’s not so simple.
Traumatic injuries, post-surgical complications, advanced age, and chronic illnesses like diabetes and vascular disease can all disrupt the delicate healing process, leading to wounds that last months or years.
Left untreated, about 30% led to amputation. And recent studies show the risk of dying from a chronic wound complication within 5 years rivals that of most cancers.
Yet until recently, medical technology had not kept up with what experts say is a snowballing threat to public health.
“Wound care – even with all of the billions of products that are sold – still exists on kind of a medieval level,” said Geoffrey Gurtner, MD, chair of the department of surgery and professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. “We’re still putting on poultices and salves ... and when it comes to diagnosing infection, it’s really an art. I think we can do better.”
Old-school bandage meets AI
Dr. Gurtner is among dozens of clinicians and researchers reimagining the humble bandage, combining cutting-edge materials science with artificial intelligence and patient data to develop “smart bandages” that do far more than shield a wound.
Someday soon, these paper-thin bandages embedded with miniaturized electronics could monitor the healing process in real time, alerting the patient – or a doctor – when things go wrong. With the press of a smartphone button, that bandage could deliver medicine to fight an infection or an electrical pulse to stimulate healing.
Some “closed-loop” designs need no prompting, instead monitoring the wound and automatically giving it what it needs.
Others in development could halt a battlefield wound from hemorrhaging or kick-start healing in a blast wound, preventing longer-term disability.
The same technologies could – if the price is right – speed up healing and reduce scarring in minor cuts and scrapes, too, said Dr. Gurtner.
And unlike many cutting-edge medical innovations, these next-generation bandages could be made relatively cheaply and benefit some of the most vulnerable populations, including older adults, people with low incomes, and those in developing countries.
They could also save the health care system money, as the U.S. spends more than $28 billion annually treating chronic wounds.
“This is a condition that many patients find shameful and embarrassing, so there hasn’t been a lot of advocacy,” said Dr. Gurtner, outgoing board president of the Wound Healing Society. “It’s a relatively ignored problem afflicting an underserved population that has a huge cost. It’s a perfect storm.”
How wounds heal, or don’t
Wound healing is one of the most complex processes of the human body.
First platelets rush to the injury, prompting blood to clot. Then immune cells emit compounds called inflammatory cytokines, helping to fight off pathogens and keep infection at bay. Other compounds, including nitric oxide, spark the growth of new blood vessels and collagen to rebuild skin and connective tissue. As inflammation slows and stops, the flesh continues to reform.
But some conditions can stall the process, often in the inflammatory stage.
In people with diabetes, high glucose levels and poor circulation tend to sabotage the process. And people with nerve damage from spinal cord injuries, diabetes, or other ailments may not be able to feel it when a wound is getting worse or reinjured.
“We end up with patients going months with open wounds that are festering and infected,” said Roslyn Rivkah Isseroff, MD, professor of dermatology at the University of California Davis and head of the VA Northern California Health Care System’s wound healing clinic. “The patients are upset with the smell. These open ulcers put the patient at risk for systemic infection, like sepsis.” It can impact mental health, draining the patient’s ability to care for their wound.
“We see them once a week and send them home and say change your dressing every day, and they say, ‘I can barely move. I can’t do this,’ ” said Dr. Isseroff.
Checking for infection means removing bandages and culturing the wound. That can be painful, and results take time.
A lot can happen to a wound in a week.
“Sometimes, they come back and it’s a disaster, and they have to be admitted to the ER or even get an amputation,” Dr. Gurtner said.
People who are housing insecure or lack access to health care are even more vulnerable to complications.
“If you had the ability to say ‘there is something bad happening,’ you could do a lot to prevent this cascade and downward spiral.”