BackgroundWe investigated the physicochemical properties of Medifoam® N and its wound healing performance compared to other commercially available polyurethane (PU) foam dressing in vitro and in vivo to gain insight in their clinical performance.MethodsWound contact layer and cross-section of eleven polyurethane foam dressings were assessed with field-emission scanning electron microscope. Thickness, density, tensile strength, elongation, moisture-vapor transmission rate (MVTR), retention and absorptivity were measured to compare physical properties. Phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) solution absorption patterns were compared. An animal model for wound-healing was applied to validate in vitro findings.ResultsAmong eleven tested foam dressings, Medifoam® N has the smallest pore and cell sizes with excellent uniformity, i.e. it has 25 ~ 75 μm on the wound contact layer and 100 ~ 350 μm in the cross-section while other dressings have a larger pose size with larger variability. Compared to other PU foams, Medifoam® N also has moderate thickness, density, tensile strength, elongation and MVTR. Furthermore, it has excellent fluid absorption and retention capacity. These intrinsic properties of Medifoam® N contributed to improve fluid absorption patterns, i.e. other dressing material flawed out PBS solution on the dressings while Medifoam® N retained all the tested solutions. In animal wound-healing study, Medifoam® N treated animals showed excellent angiogenesis and collagen deposition even though epithelial recovery rate was not significantly different to other dressings.ConclusionsMedifoam® N has optimized physical properties and thus improved fluid absorption/retention capacity. Compared to other dressings, Medifoam® N showed excellent fluid absorption patterns and these characteristics contributed to improved wound healing and excellent angiogenic potential. We found that Medifoam® N showed the best results among the employed dressing samples.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40824-016-0063-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

BackgroundThe aim of this study is to investigate the physicochemical and structural properties of Medifoam®Silver and to compare with other commercially available silver-containing polyurethane (PU) foam dressing in vitro.MethodsSurface and cross-section of four polyurethane foam dressings were assessed with field-emission scanning electron microscope. Thickness, density, tensile strength, elongation, absorption rate, absorption/retention capacity and water-vapor transmission (WVT) were measured to compare physical properties of various dressing materials.ResultsAmong four tested dressings, Medifoam®Silver has relatively uniform and smallest pore size in both surface and cross-section. In comparison of absorption properties with other dressing materials, Medifoam®Silver has rapid absorption rate, good absorption/retention capacity and good WVT value.ConclusionsThe data further suggests that Medifoam®Silver is a promising candidate for wound healing management.

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