3D Electrospun Synthetic Polymer Matrix for Challenging Wounds

Hi, my name's Matt Garoufalis, I'm a podiatrist practicing in Chicago. I've been involved in wound care my entire career, which is approaching almost 40 years now. I've been involved in residency education and teaching residents how to do wounds, how to treat wounds, as well as residency director. So, I've been involved in teaching my entire career. I also have a private practice in Chicago, but my true love is wound care and limb salvage. And that's what I want to talk to you about today.

This poster on the efficacy of the novel 3D electrospun synthetic polymer matrix, which carries a trade name of Phoenix, which is a lot easier to say than that. We took a case series looking at four sites of care, and we wanted to look at the percentage area reduction at four weeks and eight weeks, and then a secondary point of how far did we close these wounds at 12 weeks? We ended up looking at about 38 patients with over 50 wounds from four different sites, which was pretty cool. And we got all sorts of different comorbidities involved. And what we discovered is that about three quarters of these patients actually finished the study. There were lots of reasons why that 25% didn't finish, because they did have other comorbidities, they have other issues going on. But what was interesting is that of the folks that finished, 66% of them were healed at 12 weeks, which was really nice.

The closure rate at 12 weeks was similar around all the different wound types. And the mean time to heal was 49 days. What was very interesting is that looking at our primary endpoints of four weeks and eight weeks, we had 66% closure at four weeks and 80% closure by eight weeks using this Phoenix matrix, which we had very good outcomes as a result. We were impressed by using this kind of a product that we can make a difference in wound healing.

Now it was often used either by itself or with other products. And many times it was used to full closure, but also many times it was used to start a wound to closure and then we used a different product to finish it off.

Phoenix wound matrix is an electrospun synthetic polymer matrix. It's different than most of the other wound care products that we use. It's been scientifically engineered to mimic a native ECM and to provide a multidimensional solution to wound healing. So the scaffolds, the little scaffolds in this fiber range from 600 to a thousand nanometers in diameter and act as a stimulus to facilitate pro-regenerative cellular adhesion, infiltration and proliferation for tissue regeneration and to repair acute and chronic wounds.

This particular product is composed of two bioabsorbable synthetic polymers, polyglycolide or PGA, and polylactic-co-caprolacton or PLCL. Both of these naturally degrade and they form alpha hydroxy acids and fatty acids. This stimulates cellular activity and supports a pro healing wound environment. This all happens by lowering the pH in the wound because of the lactate. And this brings a normally chronic alkaline wound into an acidic sphere, which now is a better environment for normal wound healing. We see the pH reduction in one week that can go from anywhere from a 7.4 down to a 4.7 in terms of pH. We can offer dramatic changes in pH, which therefore dramatically alter the wound environment, thereby getting rid of the biofilm and the bacteria and some of the MMPs that we don't need in the wound. And we get to change a chronic wound into now wound that can move through wound healing.

I think the most important thing about using this type of a product, this Phoenix product is that, well, first of all, it's extremely simple to use. You open up the package, you place it in the wound, you can even cut it to the right dimensions or fold it over. You moisten it, although it doesn't retain moisture very well, but you place it in the wound. I usually add a little saline and you put a top cover over the wound and that's it. The wound then changes in environment in pH. And what you'll see is that you'll get a lot of debris and residue that first week or two that the dressing is in, and then all of a sudden you get this great granulation tissue for me. Because you get a change in wound environment by changing the pH, that's why Phoenix works the way it does.