Chronic wounds are a major burden for the affected patients, their families and healthcare systems. They are often associated with clinical complications and, for instance, the five-year mortality rate for patients with chronic wounds arising from diabetic foot ulcers or from venous ulcers is higher than 30%, which is comparable to some aggressive cancer types. As a major challenge, the pathophysiology of the chronic wound development is still incompletely understood and wound care is dominated by non-individualized treatments. This frequently results in misdiagnosis and delayed or inefficient treatments on one side and unnecessary medical interventions on the other. Current approaches for real-time wound monitoring focus mainly on biophysical markers such as pH and temperature. Biological markers, which could provide more specific insights into the early stages of chronic wound formation, have as yet not been systematically investigated and, specifically, are not exploited for sensor design. Furthermore, delivery systems available for the treatment of chronic wounds are either passive or invasive and largely neglect the importance of changing wound conditions.

Empa has assembled a team of interdisciplinary experts, who, together with clinical partners, work closely together on finding innovative solutions for helping patients with chronic wounds and for preventing chronic wound development in the first place. The activities are organized within the Wound Booster program. The objective of Wound Booster is the design of a precision, self-care integrated system to understand, simulate, and monitor skin wound evolution. Our aim is to develop self-care wearables for spatiotemporal wound monitoring and patient-specific, timely wound treatment. The uniqueness of our approach lies in the coupling of these activities with in depth analytical and molecular characterization of early phases in chronic wound formation as well as advanced in vitro models that allow us to simulate chronic wound responses to new treatments. For instance, we will specifically investigate new biological markers that could better assist clinical decision making. The wearables developed by Empa scientists will assist clinicians in detecting signs of infection or wound deterioration early on and, accordingly, enable delivery of a precise, personalized, and timely wound treatment.

Prof. Rossi, Prof. Maniura and several other Wound Booster scientists are member of the SKINTEGRITY.CH initative. We find the regular exchange with other experts there highly valuable.

www.skintegrity.ch