The laboratory performance of gelling fiber wound dressings tested by means of clinically-relevant robotic wound simulators

The effectiveness of wound dressing performance in exudate management is commonly investigated in simple, non-realistic laboratory setups, and typically, where dressings are submersed in vessels containing watery solutions, rather than by means of clinically-relevant, modern and automated test configurations.

Specifically, two key fluid-structure interaction concepts: sorptivity - the ability of wound dressings to transfer exudate, including viscous wound fluids, away from the wound bed by capillary action; and durability - the capacity of dressings to maintain their structural integrity over the time of use and in particular, at dressing removal events, have not been properly addressed in existing test protocols and published research.

This presentation will reviews our recently published research work concerning the development of clinically-relevant, automated testing methods for wound dressings, focusing on the clinical relevance of the laboratory tests as well as on the objectivity, standardization and quantitative features of measurements of wound dressing performance.

A second objective of this presentation is to highlight experimental results characterizing the performance of gelling fibre dressings, which were acquired using advanced testing methods, to demonstrate differences across products that apparently belong to the same ‘gelling fiber’ family, but differ remarkably in materials, structure and composition and, thereby, in laboratory and clinical performance.