In vivo performance of chitosan/soy-based membranes as wound-dressing devices for acute skin wounds

Wound management represents a major clinical challenge on what concerns healing enhancement and pain control. The selection of an appropriate dressing plays an important role in both recovery and esthetic appearance of the regenerated tissue. Despite the wide range of available dressings, the progress in the wound care market relies on the increasing interest in using natural-based biomedical products. Herein, a rat wound-dressing model of partial-thickness skin wounds was used to study newly developed chitosan/soy (cht/soy)-based membranes as wound-dressing materials. Healing and repair of nondressed, cht/soy membrane-dressed, and Epigard^®-dressed wounds were followed macroscopically and histologically for 1 and 2 weeks. cht/soy membranes performed better than the controls, promoting a faster wound repair. Re-epithelialization, observed 1 week after wounding, was followed by cornification of the outermost epidermal layer at the second week of dressing, indicating repair of the wounded tissue. The use of this rodent model, although in impaired healing conditions, may enclose some drawbacks regarding the inevitable wound contraction. Moreover, being the main purpose the evaluation of cht/soy-based membranes' performance in the absence of growth factors, the choice of a clinically relevant positive control was limited to a polymeric mesh, without any growth factor influencing skin healing/repair, Epigard. These new cht/soy membranes possess the desired features regarding healing/repair stimulation, ease of handling, and final esthetic appearance - thus, valuable properties for wound dressings.