The skin is the largest organ of the human body, being a physical barrier against harmful substances, so keeping its integrity is very important for our health. However, our skin is compromised a lot of times, due to a variety of reasons, being one of them due to medical adhesives.

Medical adhesives provide numerous functions, from securing both heavy and critical as well as lightweight devices, to facilitate skin protection and healing, and even allowing continuous non-invasive monitoring. Despite their common usage, adhesives often cause severe skin injuries, known as Medical Adhesive-Related Skin Injuries (MARSI). MARSI is a silent epidemic, a prevalent, and often an under-recognized complication of wound care, that occurs when the attachment between the adhesive and the skin is stronger than the attachment between skin cells. As a result, the adhesive removal results in skin damage and pain. MARSI has serious negative impact on patient quality of life, being an underreported issue that can occur in all health care settings in wound dressing, ostomy care and in any case where medical devices must be adhered to the skin.

In clinical context, this injuries range, approximately, between 3.4% to 25% daily, being a high-risk factor in users of devices and dressings, such as oncology, dialysis and ostomy patients.

MARSI is extremely costly to hospitals, healthcare systems and health insurance providers. Treating these injuries entails costs in service provision, supplies, nursing care time and hospital beds resources. In Europe, the average cost associated with the treatment of MARSI was calculated to be €82.2, per patient and per episode. The cost burden of MARSI is expected to continuously rise due to the increasingly elderly population, higher access to health care and high incidence of comorbidities diseases (for example, obesity, diabetes and vascular diseases) and increase in the number of surgeries (for example, ostomies).

The need for a better medical adhesive is clear, not only for the industry but also for the clinical stakeholders. The current adhesive products in the market are viscous, chemical, and glue-based materials, that are associated with skin injuries since their peeling removes a large number of epidermis cells, damaging the skin. Thus, they do not provide an effective solution, especially for the patients at high-risk of MARSI. Adhesive removal is considered one of the most painful wound-care interventions, affecting the patients’ safety, satisfaction, and quality-of-life.

Therefore, there is an urgent need for a medical adhesive that offers good adhesion, multi-diversity of application and is gentle to the skin.

Did you know that Pressure Sensitive Adhesives can be the solution?

Pressure sensitive adhesives (PSA) are a type of adhesive that form a bond with the surface (for example, the skin) when pressure is applied. BestHealth4U has a PSA that will revolutionize healthcare – Bio2Skin.

 

Bio2Skin is the first adhesive technology that effectively prevents, and even eliminates, MARSI. Bio2Skin is a glue-less medical adhesive that uses the natural features of the dermis to establish a water-based adhesive and overcomes the main disadvantages of the current types of adhesion materials. This adhesive can positively impact the health and quality of life of patients, as well as decrease the economic, social, and environmental burden that MARSI has on society.

Bio2Skin possesses several advantages for product manufactures, such as being environmentally friendly and recyclable, being versatile and has a cost-effective, functional, and adaptable production.

This adhesive solution will not only reduce economical costs but, more importantly, improve the clinical outcomes and increase quality-of-life and health of patients.

Want to know more about Bio2Skin? Take a look at our website or get in contact with us!