Swellability of Silver (I) Antimicrobial Wound Dressings

An important characteristic of moist wound dressings is their ability to swell and absorb exudates from the wound, while maintaining a moist atmosphere at the wound site. At the Southern Regional Research Center, we have developed antimicrobial silver- CM-cotton print cloth from CM-Printcloth with low DS (degree of substitution), and silver alginates from four commercially available alginate dressings. As an ongoing research of silver antimicrobials, this report delineates the swellabilty of silver antimicrobial dressings, commercially available calcium-sodium alginate dressings and printcloth (controls) in water and in 0.9% sodium chloride solution after 8 hours and after one week of immersion. The swelling characteristics were then correlated with the absorption of saline g/g.  Four commercially available sterile needlepunched  calcium/sodium alginate moist wound alginate felt dressings were: Sorbsan (Bertex Pharmaceuticals, 94.0 g/m²), Kaltostat (ConvaTec, 110 g/m²), Curasorb (Kendall Healthcare, 175 g/ m²), and AlgiSite M (Smith and Nephew, 165 g/m²).  Their silver alginates were prepared using non-aqueous medium.