Coral-Inspired Hollow Microneedle Patch with Smart Sensor Therapy for Wound Infection

Every year, over 12 million people are enduring the persistent pain resulting from wound infections. In these chronic wounds, concealed infections may be covered up by scabs or granulation, which impeding accurate diagnosis and treatment. To address such clinical challenges, inspired by corals, a biomimetic microneedle patch (HepMi-PCL) is developed to indicate and treat infections within wound. Relying on high-precision 3D printing technology, each polycaprolactone microneedle own an equally sized porous shell and cavity with heparin-based functional hydrogel filling in. After penetrating through the scab, HepMi-PCL can absorb exudate in wound through surficial guide grooves and pores microstructure on its microneedle, thereby indicating whether anti-infection is needed. Upon the identification of a positive chronic infection, HepMi-PCL will smartly activate to release drugs rapidly. Subsequently, when the infection is effectively managed and the exudate progressively decreases, the drug delivery will correspondingly slow down or cease altogether. By leveraging autonomous response and therapeutic capabilities, HepMi-PCL demonstrates the potential to expedite the diagnosis and treatment of infections, resulting in an enhancement of healing speed for infected wounds by over 200%. Thus, the integration of diagnostic and therapeutic functions of the microneedle patch is anticipated to offer novel approaches in addressing the management of chronic wounds. A coral-inspired smart microneedle patch is designed for treating chronic wounds with infection sensing and adaptive therapy. Utilizing advanced additive manufacturing and intelligent hydrogel, this patch can efficiently collect and analyze wound tissue fluid for infection stage indication, and then autonomously decide on rapid, sustained, or suspended drug release. This patch can also collect inflammatory factors minimally invasively for detection. image