In mid-February, about a month after a massive earthquake leveled
much of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, a wound-care team from Brigham and
Women's hospital in Boston traveled to the devastated capital. The
team's task was to help care for scores of patients suffering from the
large open wounds that accompany amputations, crushed limbs, and other
injuries. Among the team was MIT graduate student Danielle Zurovcik, who arrived ready to test a
device she had developed as part of her thesis research--a cheap and
portable version of the negative-pressure devices currently used to
speed wound healing in hospitals.
Zurovcik and her collaborators hope the device, which costs about $3, will provide a way to improve care for patients after the emergency phase of relief efforts, including life- and limb-saving surgeries, has ended. Even after many of the emergency medical teams leave the disaster zone, the dangers of chronic wounds remain high.
"My experience in Haiti and other major earthquakes is that after the acute medical response, such as amputating limbs and setting fractures, the major disease burden is wounds," says Robert Riviello, a trauma surgeon at Brigham and Women's, and Zurovcik's collaborator. Negative-pressure therapy decreases the need to change wound dressings from one to three times per day to once every few days, a major benefit when medical staff is in short supply.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Technology Review: A Cheap, Portable Wound-Healing Device
Author: Emily
Singer
