A Protocol for Measuring Pull-off Stress of Wound-Treatment Polymers

Abstract

Skin wounds and burns compromise the body's natural barrier to bacteria and other pathogens. While many forms of wound dressings are available, polymeric films are advantageous for various reasons, ranging from the ease of application to durability. One common drawback of using polymeric films for a wound bandage is that the films tend to adhere to common inanimate objects. Patients spend hours in contact with soft and hard materials pressed against their skin, which, if the skin was dressed with a polymeric film, would inflict further wound damage upon body movement. In this work, we present a novel technique that allowed for measuring polymeric tackiness, after a long incubation period, with materials regularly encountered in a hospital or home setting, and soft fabrics. The polymers were exposed to an environment intended to simulate daily conditions and the technique is designed to perform multiple experiments simultaneously with ease. Four commercially available polymers (new-skin, no-sting skin-prep, skin shield, and Silesse) were tested as proof-of-concept to gather preliminary data for an overall assessment of wound treatment efficacy, resulting in the estimation of pull-off stress of the polymers from a specimen of porcine skin. Silesse did not reveal a measurable tackiness, no-sting skin-prep had the highest mean tackiness (13.8 kPa), while the mean tackiness between new-skin and skin shield was approximately equal (9.8 kPa vs. 10.1 kPa, respectively), p = 0.05. Future work on polymeric fluids for wound dressing applications should include tensile stress and dynamic viscosity estimations.

Mechanical and contact characteristics of foam materials within wound dressings: Theoretical and practical considerations in treatment

“…Testing methods such as the ASTM 903, 106 which is a standard test method for peel or stripping strength of adhesive bonds, are used in the absence of specific peeling tests for wound dressings. A particular challenge in this regard is to standardise a material substrate to represent the skin in such testing, although a range of options potentially exists, such as elastomers (silicones), ethylene/methyl acrylate films, epoxy resins, textiles and metals, or alternatively, excised porcine skin 86,107,108 . Preliminary research towards the standardisation of testing of adhesive bandage tapes, which are, of course, much less complex than advanced foam‐based wound dressings, already indicated that the peeling forces depend on the width of the tape and storage conditions, two example properties that are typically not considered in the evaluation of adhesiveness of wound dressings 109 .…”

“…A particular challenge in this regard is to standardise a material substrate to represent the skin in such testing, although a range of options potentially exists, such as elastomers (silicones), ethylene/methyl acrylate films, epoxy resins, textiles and metals, or alternatively, excised porcine skin. 86 , 107 , 108 Preliminary research towards the standardisation of testing of adhesive bandage tapes, which are, of course, much less complex than advanced foam‐based wound dressings, already indicated that the peeling forces depend on the width of the tape and storage conditions, two example properties that are typically not considered in the evaluation of adhesiveness of wound dressings. 109 Importantly, theoretical and computational analyses such as those reported here can be used to identify influential factors, for example, as in Equations ( A9 and A10 ) (Appendix A.2 ), which point to the role of the dressing width in the skin loading state during removals, but details of theoretical‐computational frameworks for wound dressings are also lacking in the literature.…”