In late summer 2010, registered nurse Peggy Taylor suddenly saw some longed-for signs of healing in a nasty shin would in one of her patients with diabetes. Just a few days before, Taylor had done to the patient something that she and no one else in the world had ever done in wound care before: She had filled the wound with a material that could have been mistaken for cotton, but was in fact specially processed borate glass fibres. Taylor, a wound-care specialist for more than four years, had been used to dealing with wounds that healed at slow and nearly imperceptible rates. But when she and the patient - who also happened to be a nurse - noticed the edges of the large, deep, stubborn wound had finally started to slop inwards, they were the happiest they had been in a long time. Now, after using the glass fibre treatments for week after week, it is essentially gone. Developed by scientists working in the field of bioactive glasses, the cottony nanofibre glass, recently given the name DermaFuse, seemed promising, right from the start. It is a flexible material, easily placed on a wound. Its structure maximises surface area and can control moisture levels. It is anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and is also biocompatible. And, with DermaFuse's high level of calcium and its clot-promoting structure, might speed healing.
