Malodor management in high exuding chronic wounds

Chronic wounds, discontinuities in the skin that do not heal within the expected time frame, can emanate a very unpleasant odor. This odor can be distressing for both patients and their caretakers, leading to a decreased quality of life and poor treatment of the wound. While clinical and commercial solutions for this problem do exist, these products lack efficacy for high exuding wounds. The design objective for this project is to design a method for odor control that can be used with high-exuding wounds. This will be completed by developing a wound dressing by incorporating Beta-Cyclodextrin (BCD), the active ingredient in Febreze®, into a poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) hydrogel. The PVA polymer matrix will be designed to absorb exudate while the BCD will complex with odorous molecules and prevent them from escaping the dressing. Characterization of the dressing´s properties in in-vitro experiments that isolate particular components of an odorous, high-exuding wound will be used to develop a mathematical model of odor elimination. This model will be used to optimize the dressing composition.