Miracle ‘water-powered’ bandage can heal wounds faster than traditional methods – and it only costs $1
A WATER-powered bandage packs a punch when healing wounds – and may provide a lifeline for people with serious health conditions.
Scientists have engineered a device that electrically stimulates wounds with the addition of water, triggering faster healing.
A paper published today in the journal Science Advances calls the bandage a possible solution for “chronic wounds,” which put patients at risk of amputation and even death.
The authors singled out people with Type I diabetes and cancer whose overburdened immune systems struggle to heal wounds quickly.
Some injuries like diabetic ulcers can linger forever unless they are treated correctly – and may even prove fatal.
Despite chronic wounds affecting around 2% of the population, scientists have struggled to find a cure that is simple and cost-effective.
A growing body of evidence suggests electric currents are effective at stoking wound closure, making electrotherapy a promising treatment.
However, the reliance on bulky equipment limits its widespread use in a clinical setting.
The authors believe they have found a solution: water-powered, electronics-free dressings, dubbed WPEDs.
The bandage performs in conditions “wherein many present treatments fail,” they wrote.
It is a fraction of the cost of “expensive biologics- or electronics-based approaches” at around $1 per dressing.
The magic lies in a battery and a pair of electrodes that generate an electric field when they come in contact with water.
Best of all, they can be “seamlessly integrated” with a “commercial dressing,” making the device inconspicuous and easy to apply.
The researchers tested the bandage’s healing abilities in diabetic mice and found it accelerated wound closure.
It does so by managing inflammation and promoting angiogenesis, the process by which new blood vessels form from pre-existing vessels.
This, in turn, increases the movement of oxygen and nutrients to the wound site, promoting healing.
“Across preclinical wound models, the WPED-treated group heals faster than the control with wound closure rates comparable to treatments requiring expensive biologics and/or complex electronics,” the authors wrote.
“The results demonstrate the WPED’s potential as an effective and more practical wound treatment dressing.”
Unlike similar treatments, the dressing offered “several hours of continuous stimulation with no restriction on patient mobility.”
It withstood “extreme temperatures, ambient humidity, and external pressures” and maintained a long shelf-life.
The researchers are eager to examine factors like the effect of stimulation time on healing.
There is also a need for further testing to determine how well the device treats deeper wounds, which are defined as approximately 1 inch deep.
Nevertheless, the authors are optimistic about the future of WPEDs.
“The low-cost, easy-to-use technology described here offers great potential to improve wound healing in a wide range of settings, extreme weather conditions, and use cases,” they wrote.
Electrotherapy and wound healing
The use of electricity to treat wounds may sound like an outlandish idea, but there's evidence it works
Some wounds – like diabetic ulcers, burns, and surgical injuries – need extra help to heal. If they aren’t treated effectively, they may become infected and could put patients’ lives at risk.
Scientists are optimistic about using electric currents to heal wounds, which stimulates the production of new blood vessels that carry essential nutrients and oxygen to the injury site.
A 2023 study used rodents to test a “smart bandage” consisting of a polymer patch, medication, and a thin layer of electronics.
The device wirelessly transmitted data about the wound’s condition back to the scientists and was able to deliver both a drug and an electric current.
An earlier study published in 2022 devised a bandage that monitored temperature and conductivity, using the data to direct the delivery of electrotherapy.