Healing-Seaweed As A Surgical Tool

A British company, Steriseal, has developed Sorbsan, a revolutionary surgical dressing made from seaweed harvested off the west coast of Scotland.

Gone are the days of painfully tearing off old dressings. Sorbsan is easy to remove without damaging the wound or causing extreme pain to the patient.

A sterile, non-woven dressing, Sorbsan is used mainly for weeping wounds and ulcers, particularly leg ulcers where its rapid-healing qualities can quickly put an end to the pain and discomfort sufferers of this condition endure.

Sorbsan is a natural product, one that has built its reputation on the enthusiastic response it has received from its hospital buyers - up until now, the only people who have been able to purchase Sorbsan.

Now thanks to the Boots Company, the distributors of Sorbsan, it can be easily bought over the counter at your local pharmacy.

Sorbsan handles like gauze. When placed on a wet wound, Sorbsan fibers swell to form a soft gel on the skin surface, creating a warm moist environment ideal for healing.

"The popular belief that dry wounds heal faster, is a myth," a spokesperson for the Boots Company said.

The ideal condition for wound healing is a warm, moist environment that encourages new cell formulation.

Unlike most currently-used dressings which have to be pulled off taking some of the newly formed cells with it, the saturated gel can simply be washed away with a mild saline solution.

Production of Sorbsan is an intricate process starting with the extract of calcium alginate from a special type of seaweed. The calcium alginate is converted to a sodium alginate solution and then back to a calcium alginate filament and processed through a $1 million spinning machine.

Sorbsan has proven to be extremely successful in hospitals. It is easy to -use because it does not have to be changed as frequently as other wound dressings. Sorbsan requires changing once a day for the first week unlike other dressings that require changing about four times daily.

It can be useful for almost any wound including burns and lacerations, but its special healing properties are best demonstrated with leg ulcers where it works quickly and effectively and is easy to keep in place.

Sorbsan meets nearly all of the criteria for the ideal surgical dressing by being non-adherent, protecting the wound from further damage, and being easy to apply and change.

Because Sorbsan is a natural product, any particles left in the wound decompose and are ingested by the cells. This eliminates the need to completely clean the wound when changing the dressing.

Sorbsan is available in three sizes, small, medium, and large. A “packing” for deep wounds is also available.

Vol 8 Issue 2 Page 4