Breakthrough electronic suture enhances wound care with real-time inflammation monitoring

An announcement on July 30 (Tue) details that a research team led by Professor Jaehong Lee at the Department of Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science & Technology (DGIST; President Kunwoo Lee) and Professor Jungseung Lee at the Department of Global Biomedical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University has successfully developed an electronic suture that can monitor changes in inflammation levels around wounds in real time. The electronic suture is expected to contribute significantly to wound care and personalized care across various medical fields.

The healing process of a wound is highly complex and greatly affected by the surrounding environment. If healing is delayed due to improper care, the wound can become chronic, which can potentially lead to amputation, disability, and even death. It is especially important to constantly and accurately monitor the condition of a chronic wound and diagnose infection early.

While many different wound care devices have been developed to perform this function, most of them are bands or patches. These devices can only diagnose a wound on the surface of the skin, and therefore, have a limited ability to accurately assess the healing or inflammatory condition of a wound deeper than the surface layer of the skin.

To tackle this problem, Professor Jaehong Lee's research team, in collaboration with Professor Jungseung Lee's team at Sungkyunkwan University, has successfully developed a suture-type wound monitoring system that can monitor the inflammatory condition of a wound inside and outside the body for a long period of time. While the system functions as a regular surgical suture to close a wound, it can also detect changes in the inflammatory condition of the wound where the suture is applied, in real time.

Traditional surgical sutures serve only to close a wound. Contrarily, the developed electronic suture adds the function of continuously monitoring the inflammatory condition of a wound, which makes it possible to take care of wounds more effectively in practice. The electronic suture can detect inflammation in a wound in real time to help to receive proper treatment. Furthermore, it can detect infectious conditions early, ensuring that treatment is not missed and helping the wound recover more effectively.

This study makes it more likely to use body-inserted electronic suture device technology in medical practice. We will conduct research more actively in not only the development of electronic sutures but also the field of body-inserted healthcare devices, which can measure various types of vital signs."

Professor Jaehong Lee

Meanwhile, this study was led by Professor Jaehong Lee at the Department of Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering, DGIST, while Professor Jungseung Lee at the Department of Global Biomedical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University participated in the study as a corresponding author. The results of this study were published on July 17 (Wed) in Advanced Functional Materials (IF: 18.5), one of the most well-known international journals in materials science. This study was funded by the Korea Medical Device Development Fund's Government-wide Full-cycle Medical Device Development Project and the Ministry of Science and ICT's Excellent New Researcher Project, Basic Research Laboratory Project, and Biomedical Technology Development Project.