Burn wounds are severely painful, difficult to treat and hard to heal. Often, they result in noticeable scarring for life, leaving patients to experience the associated stigma. Currently, complex burn wounds are treated with traditional bandage dressings, antibiotics, and surgery in the worst cases. Changing such bandages in burn wound care is a very painful process for the patient and leads to further scarring as new layers of tissue grow on the dressing and are removed with the change. It is also labor-intensive and time-consuming for the medical centers as patients must have their dressings changed every two to three days depending on the bandage type. In this project, we want to develop a new generation of burn wound care bandages capable of maintaining optimal wound healing conditions without changing needs. The breakthrough idea is based on innovative foam formulation that allows transport of fluid in and out from the wound. The idea is to eventually delay, or even avoid, bandage change. The vision is to implementation of a closed loop fluidic system with potential to automate the process for improved burn wound care.
