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A novel way to manage infected wounds and a truly customized treatment without need for antibiotics: That is the idea behind a new medical technology project supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, including the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM among the research partners.
After surgery, many patients will be affected by infections around their wounds. Around 2.5% of all surgical interventions will even lead to a surgical site infection, or SSI. On average, such infections will keep the patients confined to their hospital beds for around ten days longer; mortality can also increase twofold to elevenfold. Three in every four deaths among patients suffering from SSIs are directly due to the infections. Worryingly, bacterial strains resistant to antibiotics are increasingly common and are not easily treated by administering drugs. All of this is becoming a massive burden, not just for the patients themselves, but for the healthcare system at large.
Giving patients affected by acute post-surgical or even chronic SSIs the best possible care means diligent prevention, supervision, and therapy. The new COMS©Blue system is designed to be an innovative solution for managing surgical site infections. The project partners behind the system are adding their device to the COMS© platform, which is already being used for supporting the management of chronic wounds with combined optical and magnetic stimulation.
Focused and customized treatment of infected wounds
Fitting nicely in the palm of a hand, the COMS©Blue device is placed onto the affected wound with a sterile adapter to prevent contamination. COMS©Blue then exposes the wound to near-UV light, which has antibacterial properties and can reinforce the effects of conventional antibiotics even with resistant strains of bacteria. Additionally, a magnetic pulse stimulates blood flow of the tiny blood vessels around the site. This so-called microcirculation is often disrupted around wounds, stopping the body’s natural ability to get its immune cells to the wound, where they would fight the infection.
Since the device is used immediately on the patient, it should never become overly hot to the touch. This calls for careful thermal management of the LEDs. The cooling system has to be able to conduct even substantial heat away from the patient, while not affecting the compact dimensions of the device. This is where the unique packaging and interconnection expertise of Fraunhofer IZM comes into play for developing and evaluating the right LED modules for the job.
The COMS©Blue platform is supported by a software suite that captures real-time data on bacterial load and the effects of the therapy. This can be a crucial link for truly targeted and customized therapy of SSIs that can speed up recovery and reduce the burden on the healthcare system.
COMS©Blue is a project of the Swiss medical technology enterprise Piomic Medical in cooperation with Fraunhofer IZM and the software specialists of reanmo. It is supported by Innosuisse and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research as part of the Eurostars funding programme (ID: COMSBlue-6870).
Text: Steffen Schindler
Dr.-Ing. Olaf Wittler l Environmental & Reliability Engineering l Phone +49 30 46403-240 l olaf.wittler@izm.fraunhofer.de l
Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM l Gustav-Meyer-Allee 25 l 13355 Berlin l www.izm.fraunhofer.de
https://www.izm.fraunhofer.de/en/news_events/tech_news/comsblue.html
COMS©Blue is a compact device that helps treat and manage surgical site infections without recourse ...
Piomic Medical AG
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COMS©Blue is a compact device that helps treat and manage surgical site infections without recourse ...
Piomic Medical AG
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