Researchers at the University of California Riverside have developed a battery powered revolutionary oxygen gel.
The oxygen gel can help diabetic patients heal chronic wounds more quickly, while reducing infection and potentially preventing amputations.
This advanced gel continuously delivers oxygen to hard to heal tissues, accelerating the recovery process.
Initial preclinical study results have shown that the technology could prove to be an effective tool for doctors in treating wounds that do not respond to conventional treatment methods.
Wounds that remain open for more than one month are considered chronic wounds. Each year, approximately 12 million people suffer from such wounds, and nearly one fifth of these cases lead to amputations.
According to researchers, one of the main causes of chronic wounds is a lack of oxygen deep within damaged tissues. When oxygen levels become too low, wounds remain stuck in a prolonged inflammatory phase, resulting in increased bacterial growth and tissue breakdown instead of repair. This new oxygen gel targets this fundamental issue in an effort to restore the natural healing process.
The study was published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.
