SMART Bandage for Monitoring Wound Perfusion

ABSTRACT: Arteriocyte intends to develop and commercialize an innovative wound dressing. This SMART Bandage will incorporate an optical oxygen sensor and provide oxygen measurements of underlying wounded tissue, enabling assessment of the extent of injury and likelihood for healing without the need for dressing removal. The key discovery is a pair of novel porphyrin dendrimers that have vastly higher oxygen sensitivity (up to 40-fold higher) than currently available optical sensors and can be evenly dispersed and tightly enmeshed within polymer films. This combination of features enables quantitative two-dimensional mapping of tissue oxygenation with high spatial resolution. Our objective for this Phase I proposal is to adapt our porphyrin films for use on a wide variety of wounds by combining them with different wound dressings. The studies described herein will provide initial evidence that our approach is feasible by assessing the oxygen sensing capabilities of these SMART Bandages. Upon successful completion of this work, we will pursue Phase II funding to develop a clinical prototype consisting of a SMART Bandage, a streamlined imaging device, and user-friendly software. SMART Bandage will have dual use applications in both military (as far forward as combat field hospitals) and civilian settings (hospitals and wound care clinics). BENEFIT: SMART Bandage will have dual use applications in both military (as far forward as combat field hospitals) and civilian settings (hospitals and wound care clinics). SMART Bandage will benefit nurses, doctors, and any other wound care provider (including home health aids) struggling to diagnose and monitor wounds without submitting patients to disruptive and painful dressing changes. SMART Bandage has great potential for utilization in a wide range of applications where simple, quick, real time and periodic monitoring of tissue oxygenation could provide valuable data to inform diagnosis and treatment decisions, including but not limited to: burn wound diagnosis and care, traumatic wound diagnosis and care, chronic wound diagnosis and care, monitoring of grafts and flaps, diagnosis of peripheral vascular disease, and amputation level assessment.