Bioactive glass incorporated dressing matrix for rapid hemostatic action with antibacterial activity

Uncontrolled bleeding stands as a leading cause of preventable death in both civilian trauma and military battlefield scenarios. Existing hemostatic dressings like HemCon, Celox, and QuickClot, often lack instant hemostasis at the bleeding site and may have biodegradability and exothermic issues. To address the above in this communication, we have synthesized a hemostatic glass (acronym AlBG, CaO-SiO2 system, incorporated with Al2O3 and ZnO) by sol gel route and carried out detail physicochemical characterizations, e.g., XRD, FESEM, FTIR, BET and particle size analysis etc. The AlBG of particle size range 140–253 nm was incorporated into the nonwoven surgical cotton gauze to obtain AlBGscg. In vitro biological assays including cytocomtability, hemocompatibility assays of the above coated gauze was undertaken using NIH3T3 of which, the later showed optimum hemocompatibility with <6 % lysis of red blood cells. Potent antibacterial action on both gram positive and gram negative strains were obtained with significant zone of inhibition of 17 ± 0.34 mm and 16 ± 0.56 mm, respectively. Importantly, significant reduction of the clotting time (31.81 ± 0.12 % for P time and 33.3 ± 0.23 % for aPTT) compared to the control group, indicated activation of both intrinsic and extrinsic coagulation pathways. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images exhibited an enhanced in vitro blood clot formation in case of AlBGscg in comparison to the control (uncoated surgical cotton gauze), visually. Additionally, a noticeable reduction of ∼30 % in the time required for the blood clot formation, in case of AlBGscg, was observed. The in vivo hemostatic potential of AlBGscg was evaluated in Wistar rats through femoral artery injury and was compared with commercially available surgical cotton gauze. The results demonstrated substantial reduction in the time required for hemostasis (approximately 50 % reduction), a lower amount of blood loss (7.33 % with AlBGscg compared to 22.31 % with surgical cotton gauze), and importantly, there were no incidents of re-bleeding observed with AlBGscg, highlighting its promise as a candidate for effective hemostasis.