Advancements in 3D-printable polysaccharides, proteins, and synthetic polymers for wound dressing and skin scaffolding - A review.

This review investigates the most recent advances in personalized 3D-printed wound dressings and skin scaffolding. Skin is the largest and most vulnerable organ in the human body. The human body has natural mechanisms to restore damaged skin through several overlapping stages. However, the natural wound healing process can be rendered insufficient due to severe wounds or disturbances in the healing process. Wound dressings are crucial in providing a protective barrier against the external environment, accelerating healing. Although used for many years, conventional wound dressings are neither tailored to individual circumstances nor specific to wound conditions. To address the shortcomings of conventional dressings, skin scaffolding can be used for skin regeneration and wound healing. This review thoroughly investigates polysaccharides (e.g., chitosan, Hyaluronic acid (HA)), proteins (e.g., collagen, silk), synthetic polymers (e.g., Polycaprolactone (PCL), Poly lactide-co-glycolic acid (PLGA), Polylactic acid (PLA)), as well as nanocomposites (e.g., silver nano particles and clay materials) for wound healing applications and successfully 3D printed wound dressings. It discusses the importance of combining various biomaterials to enhance their beneficial characteristics and mitigate their drawbacks. Different 3D printing fabrication techniques used in developing personalized wound dressings are reviewed, highlighting the advantages and limitations of each method. This paper emphasizes the exceptional versatility of 3D printing techniques in advancing wound healing treatments. Finally, the review provides recommendations and future directions for further research in wound dressings.

Comparative assessment of blood glucose monitoring techniques: a review.

Monitoring blood glucose levels is a vital indicator of diabetes mellitus management. The mainstream techniques of glucometers are invasive, painful, expensive, intermittent, and time-consuming. The ever-increasing number of global diabetic patients urges the development of alternative non-invasive glucose monitoring techniques. Recent advances in electrochemical biosensors, biomaterials, wearable sensors, biomedical signal processing, and microfabrication technologies have led to significant research and ideas in elevating the patient's life quality. This review provides up-to-date information about the available technologies and compares the advantages and limitations of invasive and non-invasive monitoring techniques. The scope of measuring glucose concentration in other bio-fluids such as interstitial fluid (ISF), tears, saliva, and sweat are also discussed. The high accuracy level of invasive methods in measuring blood glucose concentrations gives them superiority over other methods due to lower average absolute error between the detected glucose concentration and reference values. Whereas minimally invasive, and non-invasive techniques have the advantages of continuous and pain-free monitoring. Various blood glucose monitoring techniques have been evaluated based on their correlation to blood, patient-friendly, time efficiency, cost efficiency, and accuracy. Finally, this review also compares the currently available glucose monitoring devices in the market.