Current clinical projects
Study Title: Laboratory observational Ex-Vivo study to
investigate the sensitivity and specificity of a smart dressing to
detect clinically relevant wound infection.
This study focusses on identifying infection in burn wounds. As
the skin's protective barrier is lost following a burn injury, it
is vulnerable to infection. This is one of our key research
priorities.
Burn wound infections can be difficult to diagnose in children,
as the symptoms such as fever, vomiting and rash are shared with
other common childhood illnesses. Children with burn wound
infection can become seriously ill if treatment with antibiotics is
not started quickly.
On the other hand, if children have symptoms such as fever or a
rash this could be due to another cause such as a cold virus,
teething etc which do not need to be treated with
antibiotics.
The Centre is working with the University of Bath to develop and
test their new dressing prototype.
From 2016-2018 we collected samples from used burn dressings to
test the Smartwound™ dressing's response in the laboratory. The aim
was to find out if the dressing correctly identified the patients
with infection by changing colour and stayed 'turned off' for those
without infection.
We are currently in the data processing phase.
The next phase aims to test the prototype Smartwound™ dressing
on healthy volunteers who have suffered a burn injury and are
requiring dressings for healing.
Smartwound
Scientists explore alternative to
antibiotics
Colour-changing burns dressing will help fight
against antibiotic resistance
Study Title: Core Outcome Sets for Burn Care Research.
There are different ways to treat patients after a burn injury.
Doctors need to test whether new treatments are better than older
treatments. To do this we need to measure how well patients recover
with different care. People with burns have different experiences
during their recovery. This could include issues such as the side
effects of treatment including scarring, pain or itching or quality
of life. Currently researchers are using different endpoints of
recovery to assess new treatments. The aim of the study is to find
out which recovery issues or outcomes are most important to
patients. The results of this study will enable a Core Set of
Outcomes to be identified and agreed. These will then be reported
consistently in all future burn research studies.
Patients are sent two questionnaires by post or email following
their burn injury, and asked to rate how important each issue or
outcome is. If there are any issues not covered by the
questionnaire, patients are asked to add comments. After the
questionnaires have been analysed, patients are also invited to a
group meeting along with NHS staff to discuss the final core set of
outcomes.
This research is being funded by the National Institute for
Health Research, led by Dr Amber Young and run by the University of
Bristol.
Twitter: @COSBresearch Email: COSBresearch@gmail.com
