Microalgae-gel patch to promote chronic wound healing in diabetics: research
Chronic wounds appear among diabetics. The patients' weak blood circulation and complications make the cuts and bruises hard to heal. The most severe types even lead to the insection of certain body parts, Xinhua reports.
Oxygen therapy has been used to heal wounds of diabetics. But it is less effective in penetrating the skin.
The researchers from Nanjing University introduced the oxygen-producing patch made of living microalgae hydrogel which can produce dissolved oxygen under photosynthesis and bring oxygen deep into the skin.
In an experiment, the researchers divided diabetic mice into two groups. The result showed that the one-centimeter wounds of the group treated with patch therapy reduced 45 percent in six days, while the same size wounds of the group treated with traditional oxygen therapy became 20 percent smaller.
The researchers found that the patch carried over 100 times more oxygen into the mice's skin than the traditional oxygen therapy, according to their recent research article published in the journal Science Advances.
The microalgae hydrogel patch still needs to be tested on animals before human clinical trials.