Design and development of composite wound dressing materials loaded with nano particles of biopolymers and minerals for hemostatic control

Abstract

Textile technology has contributed enormously to the field of medicine by way of a wide range of medical textiles used in different areas of medicine. One area of focus is the wound dressing used to stop rapid and uncontrollable blood loss which is termed as hemorrhage. Despite the giant stride in medical care and advancements in bio-medical instrumentation, massive blood loss during a trauma still poses a threat to the medical fraternity and has been the prime cause of mortality. Application of physical pressure on the spot of bleeding with currently available wound dressing materials are found to be inadequate in the control of hemorrhage. In fact, uncontrollable hemorrhage accounts for almost 50% of combat fatalities and up to 80% of civilian trauma fatalities. Control of heavy blood loss or hemorrhage can reduce the mortality rate due to fatal accidents and war field traumatic conditions. Numerous studies have been conducted across the globe to combat the heavy blood loss during traumatic conditions using bio polymers either separately on textile substrates or partially combining bio-polymers, mineral particles and fibre films on textile substrates. The combination of micro and nano levels of particles and polymeric fibres play a vital role in manufacture of wound dressings for the hemostatic control of wounds as well as in various applications of medical textiles. In this dissertation a comprehensive work was done to develop a wound dressing by combining components such as nano biopolymers, nano mineral particles, nano fibrous film and a textile substrate for controlling severe blood loss, i.e. hemorrhage, as a hemostat material. newline