Leprosy-associated chronic wound management using biomaterials.

Background: Deformities and neuropathic chronic ulcers are the common features associated with leprosy-cured individuals that impact their quality of life and impair rehabilitation efforts. The challenging aspects for treatment of chronic wounds are the factors that inhibit healing. We reasoned that limited success of various therapeutic interventions could be due to the fact that leprosy-cured individual's physiology gets acclimatized to having a chronic wound that any therapeutic intervention is counterbalanced to maintain at the wound site. Therefore, an alternative strategy would be to use biomaterials that gradually alter the wound site allowing the individual's physiology to participate in the healing process.

Aims: Developing the human amnion (Amn)-derived biomaterial scaffolds and evaluating its use to heal chronic wounds in leprosy-cured but deformed persons (LCDPs).

Materials and Methods: Using an enzymatic protocol, we have developed a rapid method to generate biomaterial scaffolds from discarded human Amn. A clinical trial on 26 LCDPs was performed with the biomaterial, and its wound-healing potential was then compared with LCDPs undergoing standard treatment procedure.

Results: Biomaterial-based treatment of chronic wounds on LCDP displayed a higher efficiency in healing when compared to standard treatment.

Conclusions: This study exemplifies that biomaterial-based treatment of leprosy-wounds offers an excellent affordable alternative for wound management. This study underlines the importance of involving both local wound environment and systemic effects for healing. In addition, we highlight wound healing as a necessity for successful rehabilitation and reintegration of leprosy-cured person into the society.