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CUTINOVA™ HYDRO

HYDRO-SELECTIVE™ Dressing

Selective absorption & growth factors

Selective Absorption

The animation below demonstrates one of the most innovative features of CUTINOVA^◊ Hydro - it is HYDRO-SELECTIVE^◊. This means that CUTINOVA^◊ Hydro can selectively absorb mainly water leaving essential growth factors and other natural proteins important to healing in the wound.

Press F5 to view the animation again

Growth Factors

Growth factors are small, naturally occurring proteins (or peptides) which direct a range of biological processes. They are released by a variety of different cells that use them to stimulate, stop or mediate cellular events. A growth factor can trigger an effect in the cell that released it (autocrine signalling), in a neighboring cell (paracrine signalling) or over longer distances, in effector cells via the blood stream (endocrine or hormonal signaling).

These protein signaling agents are known to play a significant role in wound repair. They are centrally involved in stimulating and controlling many wound healing processes; including inflammation, epithelialization (the generation of new epidermal skin), fibroplasia (the formation of granulation tissue), angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels) and scar formation⁷. Phagocytic cells, called macrophages, synthesise many growth factors involved in the wound healing process. When these cells are removed from a wound, healing is markedly decreased.

Growth factors commonly have long names, such as basic fibroblast growth factor or platelet-derived growth factor, which are frequently shortened to a series of letters and sometimes numbers, for example bFGF (basic fibroblast growth factor) and PDGF (platelet-derived growth factor).

The ability of CUTINOVA^◊ Hydro to selectively absorb mainly water from wound fluid leaving essential growth factors and other proteins in the wound, has been demonstrated in an in-vitro study⁶.

The graph below shows how CUTINOVA^◊ Hydro outperformed other dressings in their ability to absorb mainly H²O from artificial wound fluid (i.e. human plasma) while leaving serum proteins behind⁶. The bars represent the concentration of protein and growth factors left in the wound. These are higher (i.e. a greater concentration) for CUTINOVA^◊ Hydro than for the two hydrocolloids used as comparisons.

CutinovaHydro Hydro Selective Dressing Science Selective Absorption Outperformance Graph

Traditional dressings are not selective in the way in which they absorb fluid. In other words they will indiscriminately absorb wound fluid and its contents.

For References, see Abstracts