Combinatorial Nanofiber-Based Analgesic Dressings for Burn Wounds

Current thermal and chemical burn care practices such as debridement and physical therapy produce intense pain for patients. The management of this intense pain relies almost exclusively on systemically administered opioids or other pain medications, which are known to produce side effects as serious as opioid dependence.The need to reduce opioid use can be met by delivering the known effective opioids in lower, controlled concentrations in a localized manner using a topical analgesic wound dressing. In order to address the critical need for localized, controlled delivery of opioids to burn wounds, Luna Innovations is developing a topical delivery system known as TuneCoat. Lunas TuneCoat wound dressing will be prepared using a unique combinatorial electrospinning process, whereby multiple fibers can be prepared simultaneously within the same bandage layer, allowing drugs of different chemistry and molecular weight to be individually tuned for release rate and concentration.