The bandage could help improve the quality of life of people who live with chronic non-healing wounds, which currently frequently require painful cleaning and treatment. Non-healing wounds can be a side effect of certain medications or health factors like diabetes, cancer or damaged blood vessels.
A team of researchers from the UK and France developed the first-of-its-kind bandage, which is embedded with light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to bathe wounds in sterilising ultraviolet light, preventing the growth of bacteria without the use of drugs like antibiotics.
UV light is already widely used to sterilise objects like surgical equipment and fresh food. Treating bacterial infections in non-healing wounds with UV light instead of drugs could help to slow the rise of new strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
In a new paper published in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems, the researchers outlined how they built the smart bandage and demonstrated its antibacterial effectiveness.
They built a slim, flexible inductive coil which could be integrated into the fabric of the bandage. The coil uses magnetic-resonant wireless power transfer to provide power to the UV LEDs without the need for batteries.
Instead, the inductive coil receives its power over the air, transmitted from a second coil connected to the electrical mains. The LEDs can be powered indefinitely simply by keeping the transmitting and receiving coils close to one another until the antimicrobial treatment is complete.
In lab tests, the researchers exposed samples of a strain of gram-negative bacteria called Pseudoalteromonas sp. D41 to the UV light supplied by the smart bandage. The tests showed that the smart bandage could slow and stop the growth of Pseudoalteromonas sp. D41 on the surfaces of slides, eradicating the bacteria within six hours. The researchers suggest that the system could find use in medical settings to do the same for bacteria in patients’ chronic non-healing wounds.
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In a statement, Professor Steve Beeby, RAEng Chair in Emerging Technologies at Southampton University and co-author of the paper, said: “The use of ultraviolet light to kill viruses and bacteria is well known and this is the first work to integrate UVC emitting LEDs within a bandage and explore its efficacy. This approach could provide a significant benefit to the treatment of persistent wounds and is a major advance over typical smart bandages that attempt to monitor wound condition.”
Co-author Dr Mahmoud Wagih, of Glasgow University’s James Watt School of Engineering, developed the smart bandage’s wireless power delivery system.
Dr Wagih said: “Traditional batteries are bulky, inflexible, and need to be changed regularly. That makes them difficult to use in bandages, which need to conform closely to the contours of patients’ bodies to deliver reliable treatment over several hours. The system we’ve developed is flexible and can be seamlessly integrated into the fabric of a bandage to power the LEDs, which deliver UV-C light across any surface.
“We believe that smart bandages will be key to future healthcare, but we need to be mindful of their environmental footprint. In the UK alone, over 40,000 tonnes of batteries are sold annually and less than half of them are recycled. Our wireless power technology will allow healthcare wearables to grow, sustainably, as an alternative to drug-based treatments.”
“We’ll be continuing to collaborate on developing the bandage further to integrate sensors capable of monitoring the progress of wounds, as well as setting out to test the technology in clinical settings in the years to come.”
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