A temperature-sensitive, high-adhesion medical tape: a comparative, single-blind clinical trial.

OBJECTIVE: Medical adhesives are used to secure wound care dressings and other critical devices to the skin. While high peel-strength adhesives provide more secure skin attachment, they are difficult to remove from the skin and are correlated with medical adhesive-related skin injuries (MARSI), including skin tears, and an increased risk of infection. Lower-adhesion medical tapes may be applied to avoid MARSI, leading to dressing or device dislodgement and further medical complications. METHOD: This paper reports on the clinical testing of a new, high-adhesion medical tape, ThermoTape (University of Washington, US), designed for low skin trauma upon release. ThermoTape was benchmarked with Tegaderm (3M, US) and Kind Removal Tape (KRT) (3M, US). All three tapes were applied to both the left and right forearm of healthy volunteers and were removed 24 hours later-the right arm without applying heat and the left arm by applying a heat pack for 30 seconds before removal. Tape wear, self-reported pain (0-10 scale) and skin redness 15 minutes after removal were recorded. RESULTS: This was a 53-subject comparative, single-blind clinical trial. There were clinically and statistically significant results supporting reduced pain during removal of ThermoTape with warming, with an average 58% decrease in pain, paired with a statistically significant 45% reduction in skin redness (p<0.01 for both values). In contrast, there were statistically insignificant differences in pain and redness for removal of Tegaderm and KRT with warming. ThermoTape after warming, in comparison with Tegaderm without warming, produced a reduced pain score of >1 on the 0-10 Wong-Baker/Face pain scale, which was statistically significant (p<0.01). CONCLUSION: These results provide compelling evidence that warming ThermoTape prior to removal can reduce pain and injury when compared with standard medical tapes. This could allow for stronger attachment of wound care dressings and critical medical devices while reducing cases of MARSI.

iOBPdb A Database for Experimentally Determined Functional Characterization of Insect Odorant Binding Proteins.

Odorant binding proteins (OBPs) are extra-cellular proteins that solubilize and transport volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Thousands of OBPs have been identified through genome sequencing, and hundreds have been characterized by fluorescence ligand binding assays in individual studies. There is a limited understanding of the comparative structure-function relations of OBPs, primarily due to a lack of a centralized database that relates OBP binding affinity and structure. Combining 181 functional studies containing 382 unique OBPs from 91 insect species, we present a database, iOBPdb, of OBP binding affinities for 622 individual VOC targets. This initial database provides powerful search and associative capabilities for retrieving and analyzing OBP-VOC binding interaction data. We have validated this dataset using phylogenetic mapping to determine the authenticity of the collected sequences and whether they cluster according to their assigned subfamilies. Potential applications include developing molecular probes for biosensors, novel bioassays and drugs, targeted pesticides that inhibit VOC/OBP interactions, and understanding odor sensing and perception in the brain.

Prototype Development of a Temperature-Sensitive High-Adhesion Medical Tape to Reduce Medical-Adhesive-Related Skin Injury and Improve Quality of Care.

Medical adhesives are used to secure wound care dressings and other critical devices to the skin. Without means of safe removal, these stronger adhesives are difficult to painlessly remove from the skin and may cause medical-adhesive-related skin injuries (MARSI), including skin tears and an increased risk of infection. Lower-adhesion medical tapes may be applied to avoid MARSI, leading to device dislodgement and further medical complications. This paper outlines the development of a high-adhesion medical tape designed for low skin trauma upon release. By warming the skin-attached tape for 10-30 s, a significant loss in adhesion was achieved. A C14/C18 copolymer was developed and combined with a selected pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) material. The addition of 1% C14/C18 copolymer yielded the largest temperature-responsive drop in surface adhesion. The adhesive film was characterized using AFM, and distinct nanodomains were identified on the exterior surface of the PSA. Our optimized formulation yielded 67% drop in adhesion when warmed to 45 °C, perhaps due to melting nanodomains weakening the adhesive-substrate boundary layer. Pilot clinical testing resulted in a significant decrease in pain when a heat pack was used for removal, giving an average pain reduction of 66%.