RESEARCHERS CREATE A NEW DRUG-FREE TREATMENT TO SPEED UP THE HEALING OF CHRONIC DIABETES WOUNDS.

Edited by, SNEHA MAVIS 

One-fourth of diabetics suffer severe foot ulcers, which take a long time to heal due to a lack of oxygen in the wound caused by impaired blood vessels and increased inflammation. These wounds can become chronic, resulting in a reduced quality of life and the possibility of amputation.

Tissues in the body require oxygen to survive, and they require considerably more when injured. While there are various known treatments for chronic wounds in diabetics, the most popular is dozens of sessions in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, but its efficacy is uneven and carries the danger of oxygen toxicity.

Jianjun Guan, a mechanical engineering and materials science professor at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a hydrogel that provides oxygen to a wound, which reduces inflammation, helps remodel tissue, and speeds up healing. Guan's hydrogel supplies oxygen to the wound by the use of microspheres that gradually release oxygen to interact with the cells via an enzyme on their surface that converts what is inside the microsphere into oxygen. Over a two-week period, oxygen is supplied to the site, and inflammation and swelling diminish, promoting healing.

Wounds treated with the hydrogel containing the oxygen-releasing microspheres healed faster in mice than wounds treated with only the gel or no treatment. By day 16, the wounds treated with the hydrogel has reduced to 10.7 percent. Those who received only the gel were reduced to 30.4 percent, while those who had no treatment were reduced to 52.2 percent.

One risk of providing too much oxygen to wounds is that it forms reactive oxygen species (ROS), which can harm or kill cells at high levels. Guan's hydrogel can scavenge for and destroy ROS content, hence eliminating any risk.