Modified cotton gauze with high hemostatic efficacy due to controllable hygroscopicity and wet tissue adhesiveness

In circumstances of severe traumatic bleeding, urgent bleeding control is vital to the wellness and life of the wounded person. Among many hemostatic measures, gauze is widely used because of cost-effectiveness, safety and efficiency. However, it may suck a large amount of blood before bleeding stops. Thus, advanced hemostatic gauzes less blood loss and quick hemostatic rate and is greatly demanded. Herein, a novel tissue adhesive gauze (TA-gauze) is developed by coating a thin layer of polyethyleneimine/poly(acrylic acid) (PEI/PAA) on the plain cotton gauze. This TA-gauze has a reduced hydrophilicity and gets a new trait of wet tissue adhesiveness from the PEI/PAA coating layer. The TA-gauze shows much improved hemostatic performance in the rat injury models, that is, its blood loss in the rat femoral artery model is just 13% that of the cotton gauze, due to it can retard the blood movement in the gauze and at the seam of gauze/tissue through a synergistic effect of tissue adhesion and hygroscopicity. It is biocompatible and on-demand detachable. The simple preparation procedure and high hemostatic efficiency of the TA-gauze may promise a bright future for an ideal hemostatic dressing for bleeding control.