Increasing Cotton's Healthcare Benefits

ARS has developed an improved cotton-based, blood-clotting wound dressing. This nonwoven cotton product is an improvement over standard care dressings, such as gauze, and shows promise as a rapid blood-clotting agent for use by first responders and for battlefield wounds.

ARS scientists were able to increase the product's clotting ability by varying the composition and design of the dressing. In laboratory tests, the ARS wound dressing outperformed commercial wound dressings. This new technology supports the U.S. Government mandate for using domestic cotton for Department of Defense materials. It was developed in collaboration with H&H Medical, which will manufacture the cotton-based wound dressings on an industrial scale.

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