A Unique Treatment for Prevention and Treatment of Infection and Inflammation in Pressure Ulcers
Abstract
Background: Pressure ulcers are a burden on patients and on the health care system. Pressure injuries claim the lives of over 60,000 people each year and cost the U.S. health care system over $11 billion annually. In 2008, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced it would not pay for additional costs incurred for hospital-acquired pressure ulcers. Medicare estimated that each pressure ulcer added $43,180 in costs to a hospital stay. About 2.5 million Americans get pressure injuries every year, with a disturbing trend of more severe pressure injuries seen over the past 5 years. Pressure ulcers are commonly seen in high-risk populations, such as the elderly and those who are chronically and severely ill/injured. Pressure ulcers are areas of injury under the skin, caused by prolonged pressure on that area. Once pressure ulcers are formed, it is crucial to avoid/reverse their progression to chronic wounds (i.e., they should not turn into wounds that do not heal or that take a long time to heal), and heal them as quickly as possible. In chronic wounds, the normal healing process is disrupted, and major wound complications occur, caused by exaggerated inflammation and/or infection. There is currently no commercially available treatment addressing the unhealthy excessive part of inflammation, and infection management is further complicated by the fact that some bacteria resist antibiotics. Thus, the need is urgent for innovative and effective treatments that prevent infection and treat inflammation in non-healing chronic wounds. We developed BioC, a new drug class with a unique mode of action and a proven efficacy in the treatment of wound infections. Our published results show that BioC is very effective against inflammation and infection in mice and in pigs that were wounded in a process similar to a surgery. It even performed better than products currently used to treat such wounds. Our goal here is to study and confirm that this efficacy is also seen when treating pressure ulcers, and to integrate our base drug into a product that can readily be used by patients. This will result in a new way to treat pressure ulcers. In order to this, we will do the following: Specific Aim 1: To investigate whether BioC is effective in treating pressure ulcers in mice. Specific Aim 2: To develop formulations (ointments, powders, and functionalized dressings, etc.) that integrate BioC and that can be clinically relevant. Specific Aim 3: To investigate whether these BioC formulations are effective in treating pressure ulcers in mice, and to select the best candidate. Specific Aim 4: To investigate whether the selected BioC formulation is effective in treating pressure ulcers in pigs.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Dec 28, 2022
- Source ID
- W81XWH2210783
Entities
People
- Artur Schmidtchen
Organizations
- United States Army