Journal of Applied Medical Sciences

A Novel Mattress with Inboard Heating Fabric prevents the Build-up of the Dust Mite Allergen Der p1 in a 2-year In-home Field Trial

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• Abstract

  To reduce the build-up of house dust mites (HDM) allergens in beds, a heatable mattress was developed and its effectiveness investigated in a two year field trial. Circular knitted heatable fabrics were integrated in polyurethane mattresses and heated three times a week for 2 hours. Hygrothermal measurements and survivability tests with living HDM were performed in vitro. Living HDM placed inside a prototype mattress was completely killed after two hours of heating due to the climatic conditions. In vitro measurements revealed that the hygrothermal death points for HDM (51°C, 30 % relative humidity) were rapidly reached within the heated full-sized mattresses. To validate the effectiveness of this intervention in practise, a field trial was run with 20 HDM-patients and The accumulation of the mite allergen Der p1 in dust samples taken from mattresses was measured 12, 18 and 24 months. Mattresses of the intervention group showed significant lower mean HDM allergen contents during the field trial. The heatable anti-dust mite mattress helps to prevent the build-up of HDM allergens in new mattresses in the long-term use and may thus help to reduce the allergy symptomatology. As an avoidance strategy, the novel mattress supports other textile-based HDM allergy interventions, e.g. encasings.