Bi-Layer Wound Dressing System for Combat Casualty Care

Abstract : Burn injuries remain a significant cause of morbidity and mortality during modern military conflicts and peacekeeping operations. Considering that commercially available dressings are not designed to meet the challenges of treating combat burn wounds, DRDC-Toronto has designed a novel, absorbent and medicated bi-layer wound dressing to address key requirements for treating external war wounds. In the present report, we assess our dressing's bactericidal efficacy, wound healing properties, and skin-cooling characteristics using various pre-clinical models. Biopsies taken from full-thickness, pig wounds infected with Ps. aeruginosa and Staph. epidermidis showed a 2- to 5-log reduction in the bacterial load of antiseptic-treated wounds compared to those of control wounds. Though increasing the frequency of dressing changes led to a greater reduction in the wound bacterial load, the contamination levels of all antiseptic-treated wounds remained below 105 CFU/g of wound. Our results also show that 97% of partial-thickness, non-contaminated porcine wounds treated with the DRDC dressing healed within 7 days. In contrast, 92% of the wounds treated with commercial dressings healed within 9 days.