If Wounds Could Talk

Medical technology has made inroads in collecting data about health status that were considered impossible just a few short years ago. Automatic recording of data from things such as heart rate to glucose levels can be determined, stored, and transmitted with nearly seamless ease.
 
One of the medical industry's most vexing problems, however – the monitoring and care of wounds – has remained stuck in practices that go back to antiquity. Wounds must be treated and dressed at regular intervals. Those dressings must be checked visually and treatment plans altered as necessary.
 
Studies on the cost of wound care range from nearly $30 billion up to $90 billion annually in the United States alone. Of course, beyond the economic cost of this care, one can add misery and morbidity caused by the inherent inefficiencies of a care model that depends on a visual evaluation that may or may not be done in a timely manner.
 
Researchers at Tufts and Florida International universities are closing in on changing that, however. Basic research into flexible electronics and sensors able to detect common wound markers such as pH, temperature, and chemical composition of liquids secreted by wounds is close to clinical trials.
 
“Flexible electronics have made many wearable medical devices possible, but bandages have changed little since the beginnings of medicine,” Sameer Sonkusale, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and corresponding author of the study from the Tufts team, said in a release announcing his colleagues' work. “We are simply applying modern technology to an ancient art in the hopes of improving outcomes for an intractable problem.”
 
Empirical information about wound status is something many patients would like to have, and sensor-equipped bandages should be able to supply it, according to Shekhar Bhansali, professor and chair of FIU’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering – “They just can't get it right now.”