Month: August 2018

Early Diagnosis of Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy at the Annual Meeting of NEURODIAB

 

WALTHAM, Mass., Aug. 29, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — NeuroMetrix, Inc. (Nasdaq:NURO) today reported that it will be both exhibiting and sponsoring a diabetic neuropathy symposium at the 28th Annual Meeting of NEURODIAB held in Rome, Italy September 4-7.

 

Diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) is the most common complication of diabetes, affecting over half of people with diabetes. It causes significant morbidity including pain, increased risk of falling in the elderly, and is the primary trigger for diabetic foot ulcers which may require lower extremity amputations. Early detection of neuropathy allows for earlier clinical intervention to help mitigate the effects of neuropathy on both patient quality of life and cost of care.

 

NEURODIAB is the annual meeting of the Diabetic Neuropathy Study Group of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) where thought leaders share ideas and scientific findings on diabetic neuropathy. NEURODIAB is considered the most important annual event in the field of diabetic neuropathy … read more

Patients with psoriasis have a higher risk of developing new onset diabetes mellitus. It’s a risk that’s been described as statistically significant. So, in this article, we examine dermatologic care for diabetic foot infections.

 

Patients with psoriasis have a higher risk of developing new onset diabetes mellitus. The increased incidence of psoriasis and diabetes mellitus was documented in a 2013 study by Usman Khalid, et al. published in Diabetes Care in which authors described the correlation as “statistically significant.” So, in this article, we examine dermatologic care for diabetic foot infections.

Dermatologists must be able to diagnose and manage mild-to-moderate infections in diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs), said Warren S. Joseph, D.P.M., FIDSA, in a presentation at DERMfoot 2018 in Baltimore … read more

CHICAGO — To prevent amputation, physicians must assemble a comprehensive multidisciplinary team to care for patients at risk for losing their limbs, Ramon Varcoe, MD, MBBS, MS, FRACS, PhD, said at AMP: The Amputation Prevention Symposium.

 

A multidisciplinary approach to limb preservation begins with recognizing the major drivers of amputation. The global public health threat posed by the “tsunami of diabetes,” for instance, is a significant problem, he said.

 

If a patient develops diabetes, his or her risk for amputation is 15 times as high as someone who does not, according to Varcoe.

 

“The impact is more than amputation itself, though; it’s a reduction in life expectancy as well,” he said, noting that studies have linked amputation to an increased risk for death and 5-year rates of death exceeding that of some cancers … read more

Researchers in the United States present their findings on research into new smart bandages capable of real-time monitoring and treating chronic wounds.

Chronic wounds develop when a wound fails to heal within the expected time, which might be a couple of weeks or up to several months. They are often caused by diabetic wounds, pressure ulcers, leg ulcers, arterial ulcers, and malignant wounds. Chronic wounds may lead to severe pain, affecting an individual’s quality of life.

 

Chronic wounds affect millions
Currently, chronic wounds are a major health concern in the United States as they are affecting over 25 million people. This number will likely increase owing to the aging population and the continuous increase in the number of diabetes and obesity cases. According to the American Professional Wound Care Association, chronic wounds have caused the nation over 30 billion dollars each year … read more

Patients with type 2 diabetes who took liraglutide were at a lower risk for foot amputation, according to a study recently published in Diabetes Care.

Researchers completed a post hoc analysis on data collected during the Liraglutide Effect and Action in Diabetes: Evaluation of Cardiovascular Outcome Results (LEADER) trial to determine the effect of liraglutide on rates of diabetes-related foot ulcers in patients who were also at high risk for cardiovascular events. Patients in the LEADER study were randomly assigned to either an intervention arm (n=4668), receiving 1.8 mg of liraglutide a day, or a control arm (n=4672), receiving a placebo. The study continued for 5 years with an average follow-up time of 3.8 years. A diabetes-related foot ulcer was … read more

Patients with type 2 diabetes who took liraglutide were at a lower risk for foot amputation, according to a study recently published in Diabetes Care.

 

Researchers completed a post hoc analysis on data collected during the Liraglutide Effect and Action in Diabetes: Evaluation of Cardiovascular Outcome Results (LEADER) trial to determine the effect of liraglutide on rates of diabetes-related foot ulcers in patients who were also at high risk for cardiovascular events. Patients in the LEADER study were randomly assigned to either an intervention arm (n=4668), receiving 1.8 mg of liraglutide a day, or a control arm (n=4672), receiving a placebo. The study continued for 5 years with an average follow-up time of 3.8 years. A diabetes-related foot ulcer was specified as a medical event of special interest, and all complications related to the ulcer were documented.

read more

University research focusing on building stimuli-responsive material that could release, absorb antibiotics

 

Researchers at Texas A&M University and the Stevens Institute of Technology are working on the next generation of biomedical materials used to treat chronic wounds, including ulcers and wounds caused by diabetes.

 

Svetlana Sukhishvili, A&M professor and director of the soft matter facility, and her research partner at Stevens, Hongjun Wang, have conducted experiments alongside their respective teams and combined them to form one study.

 

“If you have diabetes, for example, your ability to heal wounds may be compromised, and ulcers may occur. What we’re trying to do is give you this bandage-like material that will be able to transform into skin that will help your body overcome the wound and to heal,” said Victoria Albright, a fourth-year doctoral student and lead researcher in the A&M Department of Materials Science and Engineering … read more

The use of mud or wet clay as a topical skin treatment, or poultice, is a common practice in many cultures. In fact, the concept of using mud as medicine goes back to the earliest times.

 

Now, Arizona State University (ASU) and Mayo Clinic researchers have found that one type of clay, Oregon blue clay, may help fight disease-causing bacteria in wounds, including treatment-resistant bacteria. Their findings appear in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents.

 

“The study is an important advance in understanding how clays, specifically blue clay from Oregon, have shown medicinal properties by attaching to pathogenic bacteria,” says Enriqueta Barrera, a program director in the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the research.

 

The scientists identified certain clays that kill bacteria, including many drug-resistant pathogens.

 

“Working with Mayo Clinic, we showed that these clays also diminish populations of bacterial biofilms, as well as bacteria common in wounds that are more resistant to drugs,” says biogeochemist Lynda Williams of ASU, a co-author of the study. “The results support our efforts to design new antibacterial drugs using natural clays.” … read more

An interview with Prof. Harding, CBE, and Dr Dixon, PhD, conducted by Alina Shrourou, BSC

 

What is a hard-to-heal wound?

There are many definitions of hard-to-heal. More conventionally, it’s based on underlying etiology of the wound, but in practice it’s any wound that has not healed within a timely fashion. This is often due to a lack of coordinated care. Many of those patients receive multiple courses of antibiotics and antimicrobial therapy, because clinicians aren’t sure what they’re looking at.

 

Not all wounds are necessarily hard-to-heal from the beginning, but because of the need for improvements and coordination of care, many of those patients that are seen in clinical practice become hard-to-heal … read more

     Multicenter Clinical Study Of Healing Of Diabetic Foot Ulcers Using EpiFix®

 

– Study Published in International Wound Journal Reported Statistically Significant Evidence of Healing Compared to Control Group

– Intent-To-Treat EpiFix Treated Patients = 70% vs Control 50%, p=0.0338
– Per-Protocol EpiFix Treated Patients = 81% vs Control 55%, p=0.0093

MARIETTA, Ga., Aug. 24, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — MiMedx Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: MDXG), a leading developer and marketer of regenerative and therapeutic biologics, today announced that a new study regarding the use of EpiFix® in the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) has been published in the peer-reviewed journal, International Wound Journal.

 

The paper is entitled “A Confirmatory Study on the Efficacy of Dehydrated Human Amnion/Chorion Membrane dHACM Allograft in the Management of Diabetic Foot Ulcers: A Prospective, Multicenter, Randomized, Controlled Study of 110 Patients from 14 Wound Clinics.” The paper was authored by: William Tettelbach, MD; Shawn Cazzell, DPM; Alexander M. Reyzelman, DPM; Felix Sigal, DPM; Joseph M Caporusso, DPM; and Patrick S. Agnew, DPM. The electronic publication of the article in International Wound Journal can be found at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/iwj.12976.

 

This multi-center randomized and controlled trial was led by William Tettelbach, MD, principal investigator and former Executive System Medical Director of Wound Care and Hyperbaric Medicine Services for InterMountain Healthcare. Dr. Tettelbach is now Associate Chief Medical Officer for MiMedx, a position that postdated the completion of the study.

read more

Researchers uncovered a connection between poor sleep and wound healing in type 2 diabetes that could pave the way for new treatments.

 

Diabetes is one of the leading causes of death in the United States.

 

Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes, and it impacts the ability of the body to produce insulin, the hormone that regulates blood sugar levels.

 

One serious complication of diabetes are ulcers that can form from wounds. Feet are one of the most common places of injury. Small wounds that develop on feet can eventually become ulcers … read more

Doctors at JIPMER have begun using a marine resource sourced from shrimps for wound management. Marine resources are used to help patients with chronic wounds such as burns, diabetic foot ulcers, bed sores, infections, trauma and even surgery-related injury.

 

Jipmer Director, Dr. S Vivekanandam, said the protocol was initiated by the Department of Plastic Surgery. As a forerunner, a Continuing Medical Education (CME) was recently organised on ‘Wound Update-2018’ by the Department of Plastic Surgery to sensitise and to make aware of this technology in wound management.

 

According to the Director … read more

Publication of Clinical Trial Data from CellerateRX(R) Surgical Activated Collagen(R) Peptides

 

WNDM Medical Inc. (: WNDM) today announced the publication of a journal article in Orthopedics: ”The Effects of Platelet-Rich Plasma and Activated Collagen on Wound Healing in Primary Total Joint Arthroplasty” by David Evans, BA and Bruce Evans, MD. This study examined whether two wound additives, platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and activated collagen (CellerateRX Surgical), would improve postoperative wound healing and reduce complications after total knee or hip replacement surgery.

 

Based in Fort Worth, Texas, WNDM Medical Inc. (WNDM) has a management team in place with significant healthcare industry experience that is committed to sales growth by providing efficacious products to improve patient outcomes.

 

Key Points from the Publication

 

• This was an unsponsored, institutional review board (IRB)-approved, prospective, randomized, single-blinded, controlled study with three cohorts of 30 patients each … read more

As it stands now, we have 1.6 million nursing home residents in the United States; that number is expected to double by the year 2030. Bringing advanced wound care to the long-term care arena is becoming more common throughout the country. Physician-based wound groups can bring their expertise to the patient’s bedside, thereby saving the patient pain during transport to the wound center and lowering costs. However, certain procedures—such as total contact casting and bioengineered skin substitutes—cannot be performed at the bedside because of billing and reimbursement guidelines.

 

Physician-Based Wound Care Groups: Rationale and Challenges in the Long-Term Care Setting

Utilizing a wound care physician-based group has many advantages in long-term care. Residents build a trusting relationship with their providers who come weekly to assess and treat their wounds. Wound rounds are also the perfect opportunity for the physician and nurse to collaborate. However, providers tend to have somewhat of a learning curve, as well as culture shock stepping into the long-term care arena for the first time. Being competent in wound care is not sufficient to work as a provider in this setting. The long-term care arena is surprisingly different from the hospital. The best way to describe it is, you are on their turf. Nursing homes are under a microscope, and federal regulations must be followed accordingly or facilities are at risk for fines and penalties. Providers must be compliant with the state survey process and associated wound care federal tags … read more

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released an announcement seeking input from stakeholders on a new electronic clinical quality measure under development titled, “Hospital Harm – Hospital-Acquired Pressure Injury.”

 

This measure assesses the proportion of hospitalized patients 18 years and older who develop a new stage 2-4 pressure ulcer, deep tissue injury, unstageable pressure ulcer, or experience worsening of any of the above during their hospitalization.

 

We read the full description of the measure and provided the following feedback on behalf of APWCA membership … read more

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state that in the United States, “…thirty eight percent of adults, and that seventeen percent of children and teens are obese.” It is imperative that the term obesity be differentiated from overweight. Obesity refers to higher than normal body fat, whereas overweight is in reference to an individual weighing more than the standard for height and weight. Although both terms mean that a person’s weight is greater than what is considered healthy for his or her height, obesity has higher negative health-related consequences.

 

Health care professionals are challenged to manage increasingly complex health issues related to obesity, including complex skin conditions. The increase in stored fat associated with obesity can contribute to a variety of changes in skin physiology and is implicated in a range of dermatologic conditions.2 The skin’s ability to manage transepidermal water loss is altered in the obese population. With increased fat stores the transepidermal water loss is increased, resulting in dryness and delayed skin repair. Additionally, sebaceous channels are blocked, leading to an increase in oils and resulting in acne.2 The thick layers of subcutaneous fat in obese individuals may contribute to profuse sweating (hyperhidrosis) when overheated or with activities. Hyperhidrosis can set the stage for profuse skin damage. Moisture trapped in skin folds coupled with friction as body folds rub together … read more

Grafts in the Treatment of Wounds of Diverse Etiologies

There is evidence in the literature that viable cryopreserved human placental membrane (vCHPM) grafts are effective in treating diabetic foot ulcers and venous leg ulcers.

 

Objective. This case series presents 3 cases of chronic ulcerations — 1 arterial ulcer (AU), 1 pressure ulcer (PU), and 1 recurrence of a pyoderma gangrenosum ulcer (PGU) — that had failed previous courses of standard wound care and were subsequently treated with vCHPM to determine if the treatment is an effective modality for treating wounds of these etiologies.

 

Materials and Methods. This retrospective review describes 3 cases in which patients with chronic wounds that had failed standard of care treatments for more than 4 weeks were subsequently treated with weekly applications of vCHPM. Each wound area was recorded and photographed on a weekly basis and wound area reduction also was charted weekly.

 

Results. The PU and AU both reached full closure in 4 and 5 weeks, respectively, without complication. The patient with the PGU achieved 64% closure after 9 applications of vCHPM … read more

Dr. Shane Inlow wrote a two-page article, published in 2004, to help guide clinicians in assessing and planning care for patients with or at risk for diabetic foot ulcers.1 A few years later, clinicians in Northern Canada indicated that one of their problems was communicating effectively with experts in larger centres about their patients’ foot problems. The article by Dr. Inlow came to mind, and Inlow’s 60-Second Diabetic Foot Screen was created to give clinicians a common language and process to perform such an assessment.2 This tool then underwent a validation study that included interrater and intrarater reliability and predictive validity to determine consistency of risk recognition for development of ulceration independent of specific assessor and practice setting.1,3 Four years later, a growing body of work by the International Working Group on the Diabetic Foot (IWGDF) resulted in a risk-classification tool … read more

A species of ant has become the first known non-human animal to tend the wounds of its fellows. “Nurse” ants lick the wounds of fallen comrades, and this helps them survive.

 

Matabele ants (Megaponera analis) live dangerous lives. Several times a day, parties of 200-600 soldier ants set out to hunt termites, dragging them from their nests and carrying them home. The termites fight back, and their powerful jaws can administer lethal bites, so Matabele ants frequently lose one or more limbs.

 

In 2017, Erik Frank, then at the University of Würzburg, Germany reported that Matabele ants routinely carry their wounded back to the nest. This is odd, as social insects usually treat each other as expendable … read more

     ice crystallization

 

A large number of people around the world suffer from chronic skin wounds each year. Often, chronic wounds such as skin ulcers are seen in older people suffering from circulation disorders and diabetic patients whose skin tissue has a poor capacity of regeneration. Currently, many treatment approaches focus primarily on managing the wounds.

 

Researchers have now taken a nanotechnology-based tissue engineering approach to accelerate the regeneration and repair of damaged tissues at the wound site by directing cells and tissues to grow towards the target site. Their hope is that this leads to the development of affordable and functional biodegradable wound dressings for accelerated healing of chronic skin wounds by promoting regeneration of local tissues.

 

“We show that 3D scaffolds with both aligned nanofibers and aligned interconnected macrochannels can be created with various biomacromolecules, including silk fibroin, using a facile guided ice-crystal growth and nanofiber assembly strategy,” Dr. Linpeng Fan, first author of a paper on this work (ACS Nano, “Creating Biomimetic Anisotropic Architectures with Co-Aligned Nanofibers and Macrochannels by Manipulating Ice Crystallization”), tells Nanowerk … read more

13 Sep 2018

 

This Wounds International webcast focuses on the role of oxygen in wound healing and how topical oxygen therapy can improve oxygenation and, therefore, healing.

 

In the first presentation, Breda Cullen, Research and Development Director, UK, outlines the vital role that oxygen plays throughout the healing process and the impact that lack of oxygen (hypoxia) can have on the wound. Breda explores the factors that can cause compromised healing and how these can be addressed.
In the next presentation, Hanna Kaufman, Orthopaedic Surgeon, Israel, looks in depth at the clinical evidence and how this can be applied to practice. Hanna identifies the wounds that are suitable for topical oxygen therapy and shares tips for use in practice, drawing on clinical evidence and experience … read more

The diabetes guidelines discussed below are a draft version of a consensus statement to be issued in October at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Berlin, Germany.

 

Hi. I am Dr Anne Peters, and today I’m going to talk about the new ADA/EASD treatment guidelines for managing patients with type 2 diabetes. First off, my “headline” is that I think these are really good guidelines. Although guiding people is difficult, these guidelines actually begin to guide us in the treatment of our patients with type 2 diabetes …. read more

The devastating impact of chronic wounds has been laid bare as research reveals that hundreds of thousands of patients suffer with pain and immobility for more than a year.

 

One in ten sufferers is even taking antidepressants to cope, with many more unable to work or leave the house.

 

About a million patients are undergoing five dressing changes a week, with 90 per cent of those claiming their quality of life is severely affected.

 

More than 2.8 million Britons are living with a chronic wound, defined as one that does not heal within three months.

But the ‘new normal’ is that patients are affected for eight months … read more

The burden of chronic wounds for the individual, the health system and the whole community is familiar to the readers of this journal. Improving lives and saving money through better wound care is a common theme across this issue, and in the broader wound care activities.

 

Wounds Australia recognises that to achieve our vision of Quality wound care and prevention for all requires us to inform and engage with a broad audience. During Wound Awareness Week from 15 to 21 July 2018 Wounds Australia will launch our Five Point Plan to Reduce the Burden of Chronic Wounds. Our plan outlines 5 key initiatives to drive the change for best practice wound care for all Australians and reduce the suffering as a result of chronic wounds.

 

1. Medicare funding for treatment of chronic wounds in primary health care. A dedicated MBS item for treatment of chronic wounds to enable GPs, nurses and allied health professionals to deliver the best practice.

2. Subsidised wound products (dressings and related products) for people experiencing long term wound care. Advanced Wound management products often attract a premium cost. Selecting low cost, modest outcome products is a false economy. Research has shown that the use of less expensive dressings actually increases costs of treating a wound … read more

Venous leg ulcers are among the most common chronic wounds. Treatment is commonly with a limb compression bandage. Previous small, often single‐center, studies have shown that it is possible to predict which wounds are likely to respond to compression therapy. We designed this cohort study using a dataset of over 20,000 individuals with a venous leg ulcer to investigate the accuracy of several prognostic models. Creating complex models using logistic regression, as well as simply counting prognostic factors, we show that initial measures of wound size and duration accurately predict, as measured by area under the receiver operator curve and Brier score, who will heal by the 24th week of care. For example, a wound that is less than 10 cm2 and less than 12 months old at the first visit has a 29 percent chance of not healing by the 24th week of care, while a wound greater than 10 cm2 …. read more

     Review of Evidence and Recommendations

 

Healthcare systems are being challenged to manage increasing numbers of nonhealing wounds. Wound dressings are one of the first lines of defense in wound management, and numerous options exist. The oxidized regenerated cellulose (ORC)/collagen dressing may offer healthcare providers a robust and cost-effective tool for use in a variety of wounds.

 

Healthcare systems are being challenged to manage increasing numbers of nonhealing wounds. Chronic wounds affect more than 6.5 million people in the United States. This trend has also been observed in other developed countries, such as Denmark (affecting an estimated 1% of the population), Sweden (prevalence: 2.4 per 1000 people), and the United Kingdom (prevalence: 3.55–3.7 per 1000 people).3 As populations increase and age, the incidence of chronic wounds is also forecasted to increase, further stressing healthcare systems and providers.

 

Wound healing and tissue regeneration are a complicated series of biochemical processes that create an orderly healing cascade with 4 key phases: hemostasis, inflammation, proliferation, and remodeling.6 If this process becomes unbalanced, healing stalls and results in chronic, nonhealing wounds. Acute wounds progress through healing in a predictable time frame, culminating in an epithelialized wound. Chronic wounds start out as acute wounds and, unless their chronic causes are removed, either fail to progress through the wound healing process and (most often) stall in the inflammatory phase, or proceed through the repair process without establishing a sustained anatomic and functional result … read more

From Today’s Wound Clinic offers an informative clinical guide to review and pass along to their patients for purposes of assisting in their education.  Login required to download PDF version

Apps, HydroClean and Honey?

According to PR Newswire, the wound care biologics market is expected to earn 1.42 billion US dollars in 2018. That number is expected to skyrocket by the year 2023, when the market is expected to increase to 2.26 billion US dollars.

 

That is a jaw-dropping amount of money that we’re spending on wound care. What’s going on?

 

There are several factors that are driving up the those wound care dollars – primarily diabetic foot ulcers, the aging geriatric population, and a general increase in burn injuries globally.

 

With the ever-increasing number of wounds requiring advanced wound care, there is new products and practices. Here’s a quick update … read more

     with poor healing of diabetic foot ulcers: A prospective cohort study

 

We studied 94 consecutive people (69% men) with diabetic foot ulcers (Type 2 diabetes,n=66, Type 1 diabetes, n=28) attending a university hospital foot unit. All participants were screened for obstructive sleep apnoea using the STOP‐BANG questionnaire, with a score ≥4 identifying high risk of obstructive sleep apnoea. The primary outcome was poor diabetic foot ulcer healing, defined as diabetic foot ulcer recurrence (diabetic foot ulcers which healed and re‐ulcerated in same anatomical position) and diabetic foot ulcer persistence (no evidence of healing on clinical examination). All participants were evaluated at 12 months … read more

Innovative approaches can encourage healthy eating and activity in adolescents.

 

Takeaways:

• Nurses can help their adolescent patients with obesity by encouraging a healthy diet and greater activity
• Smartphone apps for diet and exercise tracking may be an effective tool to help adolescents with obesity lose weight.
• Recommend apps that are inexpensive and have high user ratings for ease of use and dependability.

By Julie Ludwig, MSN, RN, NP-C, and Christine Galluzzi, MSN, RN, APC-BC

 

Many teens with obesity go on to have obesity as adults. The ramifications of obesity are both physical and psychological, including metabolic conditions, sleep disorders, bullying, anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. In addition, adolescents with obesity may experience increased school absenteeism and decreased scholastic performance. The result can be lower quality of life and limited life expectancy.

 

You can help your adolescent patients with obesity by encouraging a healthy diet and greater activity. (See Help young patients lose weight.) Engaging your patients in this effort may require some innovative interventions, including the use of technology … read more

Imagine a version of the kind of duct tape dispenser you can buy from your local home Home Depot or white-out tape used for correcting a writing error — only instead of rolling out pieces of tape or white-out material it can produce a sheet of skin tissue to cover a wound. That may sound a couple of phasers away from being a Star Trek gadget, but it’s a very real piece of research coming out of the University of Toronto. Engineers there have developed a 3D skin printer that can apparently, “[form] tissue in situ, depositing and setting in place, within two minutes or less.”

 

According to its creators, the device could serve as a future alternative to regular skin grafts. However, instead of first requiring that a patient has healthy skin removed to be grafted elsewhere, this device can roll out a new layer of “bio ink”-based, 3D-printed skin tissue onto the areas that are required … read more

Imagine rolling a tape dispenser over a wound, leaving behind a strip of cells that will generate new skin.

 

Researchers at the University of Toronto and Sunnybrook Hospital are getting close. They have designed a handheld machine that can create tissue and deposit in about two minutes, with material similar to human skin … read more

     even when tissues are moving

 

To repair ruptured or pierced organs and tissues, surgeons commonly use staples, sutures and wires to bring and hold the wound edges together so that they can heal. However, these procedures can be difficult to perform in hard-to-reach areas of the body and wounds are often not completely sealed immediately. They also come with the risk that tissues are further damaged and infected. A particular challenge is posed by wounds in fragile or elastic tissues that continuously expand or contract and relax, like the breathing lung, the beating heart and pulsing arteries.

 

To remedy some of these problems, biomedical engineers have developed a range of surgical sealants that can bond tissues to stop leakages. Yet, “currently available sealants are not suitable for most surgical applications and they do not work alone without the need for suturing or stapling because they lack an optimal combination of elasticity, tissue adhesion and strength. Using our expertise in creating materials for regenerative medicine, we aimed to create an actual fix for this problem in a multi-disciplinary effort with clinicians and bioengineers,”

full article

Cellulose nanofibrils have properties that can improve the characteristics of bio-based 3D-printing pastes. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is developing a 3D wound care product for monitoring wound condition in hospital care. However, the first commercial nanocellulose applications will be seen in indoor decoration elements, textiles, and the production of mock-ups.

 

3D printing has proven to be an efficient manufacturing method for complex, customized, and light structures. In addition to thermoplastics, 3D printing materials include metals, ceramics and foodstuffs. The range of biomaterials in 3D paste printing is still fairly limited, since pastes pose unique challenges: their structure must not collapse during printing and the objects manufactured must remain sufficiently strong, rigid or flexible after drying. In 3D biomaterial filaments, however, commercial products already exist … read more

This is an edited, translated transcript of a conversation taped on June 24, 2018, during the 78th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) in Orlando, Florida. Prof Ronan Roussel, endocrinologist and diabetologist in Paris, France, spoke with diabetologist Florine Féron and cardiologist Jean-Philippe Kevorkian, both from Hôpital Lariboisière, Paris, about diabetic foot ulcers, amputations, and bedside bone biopsy.

 

Hello, and welcome to Medscape’s set at the 2018 ADA conference in Orlando. Today our webcast is devoted to diabetic foot. It’s not the most often reported complication of diabetes in abstracts or oral presentations at conferences, but there have been some interesting data at this year’s ADA conference. Joining me to talk about a study they presented during an oral session on diabetic foot are diabetologist Florine Féron and cardiologist Jean-Philippe Kevorkian, both from the Department of Diabetology at Hôpital Lariboisière. … read more

Under ideal circumstances, a break in the skin would stimulate the skin’s own repair processes to seal up the wound and restore normal skin. Clotting factors in the blood would stop the bleeding by forming a scab. The second deepest layer of the skin (the dermis) would produce new cells called fibroblasts. Those fibroblasts would produce collagen and other proteins to seal up the wound and produce a seamless layer of new skin. In some cases, evidence of the wound skin completely disappears in about a week, leaving no scar at all.

 

For the skin to heal without leaving a scar, healing processes have to occur at exactly the right time in precisely the right degree. However, the body puts a premium on fast healing rather than accurate healing.¹ Prehistoric man had a better chance at survival if a wound healed quickly than if it had healed perfectly. The skin had to close quickly to prevent excessive blood loss and infection. When the skin heals quickly, the skin that covers the wound is structurally different from normal skin. The wound heals, but the scar tissue that remains is usually permanent.

read more

University of Toronto researchers have developed a handheld 3-D skin printer that deposits even layers of skin tissue to cover and heal deep wounds. The team believes it to be the first device that forms tissue in situ, depositing and setting in place, within two minutes or less.

 

The research, led by Ph.D. student Navid Hakimi under the supervision of Associate Professor Axel Guenther of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, and in collaboration with Dr. Marc Jeschke, director of the Ross Tilley Burn Centre at Sunnybrook Hospital and professor of immunology at the Faculty of Medicine, was recently published in the journal Lab on a Chip … read more

AcryMed is touting their latest innovation in wound healing: Dissolved oxygen delivery, via their Oxygenesys system:

 

Our research shows that these new devices deliver significant amounts of dissolved oxygen, which is the biologically relevant form” said Dr. Bruce Gibbins, Founder and Chief Technical Officer at AcryMed. “We conducted studies on human donor skin to show for the first time that through Oxygenesys TDO, sufficient oxygen penetrates deep into tissues to make up for the oxygen deficiency … read more

Keywords:
Oxygen therapy,
OxyGenesys,
AcryMed,
SilvaSorb,
Chronic wounds

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AcryMed’s OxyGenesys for Wound O2 Delivery: Where It Stands in 2025

Original Post Date: August 2, 2018

Updated: June 4, 2025

Update Note: This post has been updated in June 2025 to provide the latest insights on OxyGenesys and to introduce NATROX O₂, a modern alternative for topical oxygen therapy in wound care. We’ve added new details to help you stay informed about the best options for managing chronic wounds.

Oxygen is critical for wound healing, playing a key role in cell growth, infection prevention, and reducing inflammation. However, chronic wounds like diabetic foot ulcers or venous leg ulcers often suffer from hypoxia—low oxygen levels due to poor blood flow. This is where topical oxygen therapies (TOT) come in, delivering oxygen directly to the wound to support healing.

Back in 2018, we covered AcryMed’s OxyGenesys, a promising system for wound oxygen delivery. Let’s revisit OxyGenesys, explore its current status, and compare it to a leading alternative, NATROX O₂, which is making waves in 2025.

OxyGenesys: What We Knew in 2018

OxyGenesys was developed by AcryMed, a Beaverton, Oregon-based company focused on wound care innovations. Dr. Bruce Gibbins, AcryMed’s Founder and Chief Technical Officer, shared that OxyGenesys was designed to deliver “significant amounts of dissolved oxygen, which is the biologically relevant form” for wound healing.

AcryMed’s studies on human donor skin showed that OxyGenesys could penetrate deep into tissues, addressing oxygen deficiencies in chronic wounds. This was a big deal because deeper oxygen delivery could potentially accelerate healing, reduce infection risks, and improve outcomes for patients with hard-to-heal wounds.

At the time, OxyGenesys seemed like a game-changer, especially since topical oxygen therapy was gaining traction as a non-invasive way to treat chronic wounds. But what’s happened since then?

OxyGenesys in 2025: Is It Still Available?

Unfortunately, the trail for OxyGenesys goes cold after 2018. AcryMed was acquired by I-Flow Corporation in 2008 for $25 million, with the goal of expanding I-Flow’s wound care offerings. I-Flow was then bought by Kimberly-Clark Healthcare in 2009, which later became part of Owens & Minor.

Employee reviews on Glassdoor suggest AcryMed was shut down after these acquisitions, with the last update from 2015 mentioning its closure. There’s no recent public data on OxyGenesys—no new studies, product listings, or mentions in Owens & Minor’s current portfolio, which now focuses on brands like HALYARD and MediChoice.

A 2025 post on our site referenced an abdominoplasty trial involving OxyGenesys, but the results were inconclusive, showing no significant healing benefits. However, this trial focused on cosmetic surgery wounds, not chronic wounds, which may not align with OxyGenesys’ intended use.

Without updates from Owens & Minor or AcryMed, it’s likely that OxyGenesys is no longer available, possibly discontinued after AcryMed’s closure. If you have information on its current status, we’d love to hear from you in the comments!

A Modern Alternative: NATROX O₂

While OxyGenesys may no longer be an option, topical oxygen therapy remains a vital tool for wound care, and newer technologies have stepped up. One standout is NATROX O₂, developed by Inotec AMD Ltd., which shares OxyGenesys’ goal of delivering oxygen to wounds but with modern advancements and robust clinical evidence as of 2024.

NATROX O₂ is a portable, battery-powered device that provides continuous topical oxygen therapy (cTOT) at a low flow rate of 11ml/hour. It includes an Oxygen Generator that produces pure, humidified oxygen from atmospheric air, and a sterile Oxygen Delivery System with a wheel-shaped design that conforms to the wound, allowing exudate to pass while optimizing oxygen diffusion.

Unlike older systems, NATROX O₂ is silent, lightweight, and designed for 24/7 use, making it practical for both home and clinical settings. It works with most secondary dressings, adding to its versatility.

The evidence for NATROX O₂ is compelling. A 2021 study showed a 71% greater healing rate for chronic wounds like diabetic foot ulcers compared to standard care alone. Patients also reported a 76% reduction in pain, and wounds saw a 73% greater size reduction.

In 2023, the Wound Healing Society gave cTOT a Level 1 evidence rating, and the American Diabetes Association included it in their guidelines for hard-to-heal wounds. NATROX O₂ has been successfully used in over 30 countries, with case studies showing faster healing, lower infection rates, and even limb salvage in severe cases.

Compared to OxyGenesys, NATROX O₂ likely offers a similar focus on sustained oxygen delivery to combat hypoxia, but with the advantage of being actively available and backed by recent data. While OxyGenesys emphasized deep tissue penetration, NATROX O₂’s continuous flow ensures a steady oxygen gradient, which may achieve similar benefits for chronic wound healing.

Why This Matters for Wound Care

Topical oxygen therapies like OxyGenesys and NATROX O₂ address a critical need in wound care: providing oxygen to wounds that traditional treatments can’t heal. If OxyGenesys is no longer available, NATROX O₂ offers a modern, evidence-based alternative that’s accessible today.

For patients, caregivers, and professionals visiting woundcareweekly.com, exploring options like NATROX O₂ can lead to better outcomes for chronic wounds. Interested in learning more about NATROX O₂? Visit their official site for details on how it works and how to access it for your wound care needs [Note: You can insert an affiliate link here if you join a program with NATROX O₂ or a distributor].

Stay tuned to woundcareweekly.com for more updates on wound care innovations.