Application and prospect of dextran as a new medical dressing / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Currently, a variety of new dressings have been on the market, which are diversified and exhibit multifunctional trends. However, ideal wound dressings are still in exploration.OBJECTIVE: To introduce the basic physiological function and polymer advantage of dextran as well as its effects to promote wound healing in combination with other macromolecule materials, in order to impel the development of dextran as a new medical dressing .METHODS: A computer-based search of CNKI, PubMed, WanFang, VIP databases was performed to retrieve reviews or research articles addressing dextran and medical dressings published from January 2000 to December 2016. The keywords were dressing, dextran, wound healing in Chinese and English, respectively.Finally, 31 articles were included in result analysis.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Dextran has the physiological functions of promoting wound healing and immune function. These physiological functions are the basis of dextran as a medical dressing. Additionally, dextran has some polymer advantages, such as water absorption, biodegradability and non-toxicity. It is noteworthy that dextran can be combined with macromolecules to produce new polymer materials that can promote wound healing in animal experiments. Taken together, dextran, as a medical dressing, has a broad clinical prospect in wound healing.