Alginate wound dressing of good integrity
AssigneeMinnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company
InventorsSusan M. Cole, David L. Nelson
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A wound dressing of alginate staple fibers has improved integrity when its fibers have been hydroentangled. Even when its basis weight is as low as 50 g/m.sup.2, the resulting wound dressing, when saturated with saline fluids, can be removed by forceps from a wound as a single piece, having little or no residue in the wound. At basis weights below 50 g/m.sup.2, the wound dressing preferably includes reinforcing fibers such as rayon.
Claims21
A wound dressing comprising a nonwoven fabric consisting of at least 35% by weight of alginate staple fibers, which fabric is substantially free from any adhesive binder or of interfusing of fibers at their crossing points, said fibers being sufficiently entangled that a plot of the fabric's tensile strength vs. basis weight lies above line 12 of FIG. 1 of the drawing when the fabric is dry and lies above line 22 of FIG. 2 when the fabric is saturated with saline water.
A wound dressing comprising a nonwoven fabric comprising at least 35% by weight of alginate staple fibers, which fabric is substantially free from any adhesive binder or of interfusing of fibers at their crossing points, said fibers being sufficiently entangled that the fabric has a Web Dry Strength of at least 0.01 N/g/m.sup.2 and a Web Wet Strength of at least as herein defined of at least 0.005 N/g/m.sup.2.
A method of dressing a wound comprising the steps of:
- (a) preparing an alginate wound dressing comprising a nonwoven fabric comprising at least 35% by weight of alginate staple fibers, which fabric is substantially free from any adhesive binder or of interfusing of fibers at their crossing points, said fibers being sufficiently entangled that a plot of the fabric's tensile strength vs. basis weight lies above line 12 of FIG. 1 of the drawing when the fabric is dry and lies above line 22 of FIG. 2 of the drawing when the fabric is saturated with saline water, and
- (b) applying that wound dressing to the wound.
A wound dressing comprising a nonwoven fabric of layered fiber webs, wherein at least one layer is a predominantly alginate fiber web and one layer is a fiber web that is not predominantly alginate fiber, which fabric is substantially free from any adhesive binder or of interfusing of fibers at their crossing points, said fibers being sufficiently entangled that a plot of the fabric's tensile strength vs. basis weight lies above line 12 of FIG. 1 of the drawing when the fabric is dry and lies above line 22 of FIG. 2 when the fabric is saturated with saline water.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.