A comparative assessment of nanoparticulate and metallic silver coated dressings

Wound infections arising from bacterial contamination and colonisation are of substantial burden to healthcare. Currently, bandages are used to merely provide wounds with physical barriers to bacteria, however they quickly become saturated and ineffective. Silver containing wound dressings have gained commercial and scientific attention as a potential solution to the problem of wound infections. In this work, we compare the antibacterial efficacy of recently patented silver nanoparticle loaded plasma polymer film technology and a commercially available GranuFoam Silver® silver-coated wound dressings. The silver nanoparticle loaded foams contained lower amount of elemental silver than the commercially available wound dressings but both silver-loaded foams had comparable antibacterial capacity. Furthermore, the silver nanoparticle loaded foams had greater hydrophilicity which may be beneficial in applications. Collectively, the results demonstrate that the nanoparticle loaded plasma polymer coating can be used on medical devices such as wound dressings with similar efficacy to existing products.