Wound healing progress tracking through mobile devices

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Project Summary: We propose in this SBIR effort to develop a smartphone or tablet based app for caregivers to perform non-invasive and quantitative measurements of patients' chronic wounds especially on diabtetic foot ulcers either at care facilities or at patients' home. Since chronic wounds take months or even longer to heal, it is highly likely that more and more patients will be discharged early from the hospitals. To follow up with the wound healing progress, outpatients must routinely visit clinicians for a long period of time in order to have their wound healing progress assessed. In addition, current wound assessment methods mostly provide information with poor accuracy and are invasive. The lack of precise wound data makes it difficult for clinicians to track subtle wound changes, thus hindering the correct assessment of the treatment effectiveness. The proposed software technology will be the first reported to offer precise wound measurement as well as analysis capabilities on mobile platforms. It will provide great benefit to chronic wound patients by providing a low-cost, effective, and personalized care solution. With its unique framework and many advantages over existing methods, the proprietary technology can be easily applied to the benefit of diagnosis and treatment on other type of wounds and diseases such as burns, acute wounds, battle wounds, and tumor irradiation treatment. It also has substantial potential for improving access to emergency care in any remote regions. With the ability of diagnosis and treatment remotely, we expect that our technology will completely change the landscape of the multi-billion dollar wound care market. There are approximately 6.5 million patients in the U.S. suffering from chronic wounds such as diabetic foot ulcers and pressure ulcers, and approximately 140,000 patients hospitalized every year with new wounds. The burden of treating chronic wounds is also growing rapidly due to increasing health care costs, an aging population, and a sharp rise in the incidence of diabetes and obesity worldwide. It is claimed that an excess of $25 billion is spent annually on the treatment of chronic wounds. Undoubtedly, the development of a mobile platform based 3D wound assessment tool is significant and will provide a much needed solution.