Odor Absorbing Hydrocolloid Dressings for Direct Wound Contact

Patients in institutional settings, such as hospitals and nursing homes, often have or acquire chronic wounds such as those resulting from venous insufficiency and pressure ulcers-these wounds can possess a very offensive odor. 1 The most direct way of avoiding or eliminating wound odor is to prevent or eradicate the infection responsible for it.Topical antibiotics, such as metronidazole gel (0.8 w/v) have proved to be quite effective, but can generate resistant organisms. Further, the action of metronidazole can be sluggish; often several days are needed for any infection to be resolved, and meanwhile the odor is still being generated.Thus, in practice, other methods such as charcoal-based dressings are often used with or with-out concomitant antibiotic therapy. Odor absorbing dressings have been marketed in one form or other for many years. During the past decades a number of charcoal based dressings have been introduced into the market. Some of the more current products are Actisorb ® Silver (Johnson & Johnson Medical Ltd, Gargrave, UK), CarboFlex ® (ConvaTec, Princeton, NJ), Carbonet ® (Smith and Nephew Abstract: Charcoal based odor-absorbing dressings for management of odoriferous chronic wounds have been marketed for many years. However, the presence of wound serum deactivates the charcoal and inhibits the adsorption of odor molecules. Charcoal dressings also gen-erally need adjunct fixation to hold them in place. A new series of hydrocolloid adhesives based on cyclodextrins has been developed to provide an alternative technology for the adsorption of chronic wound odors. Dressings incorporating this technology are suitable for direct wound contact. In presence of serum, superior odor absorption with these new materials in comparison with charcoal dressings has been demonstrated in vitro. These new dressings have significant fluid absorption potential, are self-adhesive, and require no additional fixa-tion. Some of the factors affecting performance of these new materi-als in vitro are presented. Comparisons of fluid handling and odor pre-vention abilities of 3 hydrocolloid dressings, Exuderm OdorShield ® (Medline, Mundelein, Ill) a hydrocolloid dressing containing cyclodex-trins, coded MED 9150H, TegaSorb ® (3M Health Care, St. Paul, Minn), and DuoDerm Extra Thin ® (ConvaTec, Deeside, UK) are made. Preliminary results of the in-vivo performance of the MED9150H product on chronic wounds are also given.