Innovative Technique for Wound Management in Combat Zones and Low-Resource Settings: A Mission-Oriented Project for
Susan St John1, Jonathan Saxe1,2
1Clinical Development and Education Department, Altrazeal Life Sciences Inc., Addison, TX 75001, United States.
Introduction:
Caregivers encounter significant challenges when managing traumatic wounds, especially in resource-limited settings. Frequent dressing changes consume substantial resources, worsen complications such as pain and infection, and contribute to prolonged healing times. Despite advancements in wound care, these issues persist globally, highlighting the urgent need for innovative solutions. This study evaluated the efficacy of an extended-wear transforming powder dressing (TPD) for treating traumatic wounds in a low-resource setting.
Materials And Methods:
Altrazeal Life Sciences Inc., in collaboration with the Austrian Development Agency, led a mission-oriented humanitarian project to treat as many patients as possible over a one-year period in resource-constrained public hospitals across India. The project focused on implementing TPD in overburdened facilities to enhance wound healing outcomes and improve resource efficiency in real-world, low-resource settings. After receiving an Institutional Review Board exemption, the study team extracted deidentified project data for a subset of all patients with traumatic wounds (n = 39) to evaluate the efficacy of TPD.
Results:
All patients who completed at least 2 visits were included in the final analysis (n = 23). The cohort consisted of 70% males, with a median age of 40 years (range: 8-82), a median wound duration of 30 days (range: 5-120), and a median wound area of 51.3 cm2 (range: 7-600). All patients demonstrated marked clinical improvement, regardless of wound etiology, initial condition, or duration, achieving a median wound area reduction of 51% over a median of 16 days of TPD treatment. Thirty-nine percent of patients healed or were discharged, achieving a 79% median reduction in wound area with a median treatment duration of 31 days. The remaining 61% successfully underwent skin grafting, with a median wound area reduction of 24% after 14 days of TPD treatment. Patients treated with TPD required a median of 1.8 dressing changes per week, compared to 7 with standard care before conversion, resulting in a 75% reduction in dressing change frequency.
Conclusions:
Patients treated with TPD showed marked wound area reduction in all trauma wounds with significant overall reduction in dressing change frequency and required time and materials relative to standard of care.
