Natural and synthetic polymers for wounds and burns dressing

Alginate is a biopolymer used in a variety of biomedical applications due to its favourable properties, such as biocompatibility and non-toxicity. It has been particularly attractive in wound healing applications to date. It can be tailored to materials with properties suitable for wound healing. Alginate has been used to prepare different forms of materials for wound dressings, such as hydrogels, films, wafers, foams, nanofibres, and in topical formulations. The wound dressings prepared from alginate are able to absorb excess wound fluid, maintain a physiologically moist environment, and minimize bacterial infections at the wound site. The therapeutic efficacy of these wound dressings is influenced by the ratio of other polymers used in combination with alginate, the nature of cross linkers used, the time of crosslinking, nature of excipients used, the incorporation of nanoparticles, and antibacterial agents. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the different forms of wound dressings containing alginate, in vitro, and in vivo results.

https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4923/10/2/42/pdf

Alginate in Wound Dressings

A fast and effective wound healing process would substantially decrease medical costs, wound care supplies, and hospitalization significantly improving the patients' quality of life. The search for effective therapeutic approaches seems to be imperative in order to avoid the aggravation of chronic wounds. In spite of all the efforts that have been made during the recent years towards the development of artificial wound dressings, none of the currently available options combine all the requirements necessary for quick and optimal cutaneous regeneration. Therefore, technological advances in the area of temporary and permanent smart dressings for wound care are required. The development of nanoscience and nanotechnology can improve the materials and designs used in topical wound care in order to efficiently release antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and regenerative compounds speeding up the endogenous healing process. Nanostructured dressings can overcome the limitations of the current coverings and, separately, natural origin components can also overcome the drawbacks of current antibiotics and antiseptics (mainly cytotoxicity, antibiotic resistance, and allergies). The combination of natural origin components with demonstrated antibiotic, regenerative, or anti-inflammatory properties together with nanostructured materials is a promising approach to fulfil all the requirements needed for the next generation of bioactive wound dressings. Microbially compromised wounds have been treated with different essential oils, honey, cationic peptides, aloe vera, plant extracts, and other natural origin occurring antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and regenerative components but the available evidence is limited and insufficient to be able to draw reliable conclusions and to extrapolate those findings to the clinical practice. The evidence and some promising preliminary results indicate that future comparative studies are justified but instead of talking about the beneficial or inert effects of those natural origin occurring materials, the scientific community leads towards the identification of the main active components involved and their mechanism of action during the corresponding healing, antimicrobial, or regenerative processes and in carrying out systematic and comparative controlled tests. Once those natural origin components have been identified and their efficacy validated through solid clinical trials, their combination within nanostructured dressings can open up new avenues in the fabrication of bioactive dressings with outstanding characteristics for wound care. The motivation of this work is to analyze the state of the art in the use of different essential oils, honey, cationic peptides, aloe vera, plant extracts, and other natural origin occurring materials as antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and regenerative components with the aim of clarifying their potential clinical use in bioactive dressings. We conclude that, for those natural occurring materials, more clinical trials are needed to reach a sufficient level of evidence as therapeutic agents for wound healing management.

https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/8/8/5154/pdf

Smart Dressings Based on Nanostructured Fibers Containing Natural Origin Antimicrobial, Anti-Inflammatory, and Regenerative Compounds

Selenium nanoparticles: potential in cancer gene and drug delivery

Chitosan-hyaluronic acid/VEGF loaded fibrin nanoparticles composite sponges for enhancing angiogenesis in wounds.

The present study describes preparation and characterization of fibrin–chitosan–sodium alginate composite (F–C–SA) in sheet form. F–C–SA composite was prepared and characterized for its physicochemical properties like water absorption capacity, surface morphology, FTIR spectra and mechanical properties. The optimum quantities of fibrin, chitosan and sodium alginate to get better mechanical properties to composite were determined. FTIR spectrum confirmed the interaction between amino groups of chitosan, fibrin and sodium alginate and SEM studies revealed composite nature of the material.

/pdf/a-novel-wound-dressing-material-fibrin-chitosan-sodium-7tkjl8w549.pdf

A novel wound dressing material — fibrin–chitosan–sodium alginate composite sheet

Use of edible antimicrobial films in food packaging helps to prevent post harvest decay of food materials. Hence, basil oil—incorporated chitosan films were investigated for this purpose. Basil oil, an important essential oil with antimicrobial and antioxidant properties was added to chitosan in various proportions and their properties were studied. Chitosan was derived from squid pens, a prominent waste of the food processing industry. Antifungal activity was evaluated using four important food pathogenic fungi viz, Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus, Fusarium sp. and Penicillium sp. Chitosan and basil oil individually inhibited the complete growth of the microbes at 0.5% concentration, while their synergistic effect was proved at 0.1%. Thermogravimetric analysis and scanning electron microscopy studies revealed the thermal stability and smooth morphology of the composite films respectively. The antioxidant activity and water barrier properties of the composite films were enhanced due to the essential oil incorporation, while there was a reduction in tensile strength and elongation at break. Thus, the addition of basil oil to chitosan has promisingly improved the film properties thereby making it amenable for food packaging applications.

Efficacy of chitosan films with basil essential oil: perspectives in food packaging

Egg shells which were hitherto discarded as wastes were collected, purified and powdered into a particle size in the range of 5–50 μm. A composite bone graft material in cylindrical form was prepared using egg shell powder (ESP), bone ash (BA) and gelatin. These bone grafts were characterized for their FT–IR, TGA, XRD, SEM and mechanical properties. The mechanical studies indicate that the composite having a stoichiometric ratio of BA (3 g) and ESP (7 g) has shown better mechanical properties. X-ray diffraction (XRD) data indicated the crystallographic nature of BA is akin to hydroxyapatite (HA) and both BA and ESP did not lose their crystalline nature when bone grafts were prepared. This revealed that ESP may be used as a component in bone graft utilizing the solid waste from the poultry industry.

/pdf/preparation-and-characterization-of-a-novel-bone-graft-1hn133n75s.pdf

Preparation and characterization of a novel bone graft composite containing bone ash and egg shell powder

Osteo mineralization of fibrin-decorated graphene oxide

Enzymes are biocatalysts and because of their remarkable properties, they are extensively used in medical diagnosis. Researches in the last two decades have concentrated more on enzymes such as creatine kinase-MB, alanine transaminase, aspartate transaminase, acid phosphatase, alkaline phosphatase etc. for clinical applications. Enzymes are the preferred markers in various disease states such as myocardial infarction, jaundice, pancreatitis, cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, etc. They provide insight into the disease process by diagnosis, prognosis and assessment of response therapy. Even though the literature on the use of enzymes in various disease conditions has accumulated, a comprehensive analysis is lacking and hence this review.

http://nopr.niscair.res.in/bitstream/123456789/21446/1/IJEB%2051%2810%29%20777-788.pdf

Gunasekaran Krithiga

Papers

A novel wound dressing material — fibrin–chitosan–sodium alginate composite sheet

Efficacy of chitosan films with basil essential oil: perspectives in food packaging

Preparation and characterization of a novel bone graft composite containing bone ash and egg shell powder

Osteo mineralization of fibrin-decorated graphene oxide

Enzymes in clinical medicine: an overview.