Smith & Nephew Launches Antimicrobial Dressings

     Smith & Nephew’s Advanced Wound Management division (Hull, United Kingdom), is launching two extensions to the Allevyn Ag™ range of dressings—Allevyn Ag™ Gentle Border and Allevyn Ag™ Gentle. These dressings will combine the antimicrobial protection of silver with the gentleness of silicone and soft gel adhesives that have been specifically designed to minimize patient pain and trauma to the wound at dressing removal. These two new Allevyn Ag variants are available in a range of sizes and offer patients and clinicians key benefits of antimicrobial protection to help fight infection, minimal pain during dressing changes, and superior fluid management.

     The launch of the two dressings means that patients are now offered a complete range of foam dressings for infected as well as noninfected wounds, while clinicians are in the unique position of being able to receive a clinically proven and cost-effective solution for all customers’ foam dressing needs.

     Visit www.smith-nephew.com for more information.

Uluru Inc Presents Results of First Randomized Clinical Trial for Altrazeal™

     Uluru Inc (Addison, Tex) announced the presentation of results from the first completed randomized clinical trial for Altrazeal™ Transforming Powder Dressing at the Symposium on Advanced Wound Care (SAWC) Fall Symposium, which took place in Washington D.C., September 16–18, 2009. The dressing is a revolutionary wound treatment technology that utilizes proprietary Nanoflex™ technology to promote the healing of exuding wounds. The recently completed clinical study compared healing, pain, and comfort of skin graft donor sites treated with either the dressing or with a leading commercial sodium carboxymethylcellulose-silver (CMC-Ag) dressing. Major results from the study indicated that there was a significant difference in patient’s pain scores, all favoring the dressing with lower pain scores at each time point (P < 0.001). When asked about the comfort of the wound dressing at the edges, these subjects found the dressing to be more comfortable (P < 0.001) and less painful when the dressing came in contact with clothes or bedding (P < 0.001). The study endpoints validated the hypothesis for time to healing for both dressings in this particular type of acute surgical wound.

     The study was a single center, prospective, randomized trial in which each patient served as his or her own control. Each patient had at least two split-thickness donor sites of which one was dressed with the dressing and the other with the CMC-Ag dressing. In addition to the randomized clinical trial, more clinical evidence on the treatment of various wound types using the transforming powder dressing were presented on multiple posters during the symposium.

     Visit www.uluruinc.com for more information.