Importance

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Abstract

A perforated medical adhesive tape has a tape backing layer formed from flexible sheet material, e.g., plastic film, and a pressure-sensitive adhesive layer for bonding the adhesive tape to the skin of a patient. The pressure-sensitive adhesive layer is flexible, deformable, elastic and has a permanently tacky surface. The backing layer has a planar outer surface with a multiplicity of upwardly extending protrusions, i.e., minute mounds which are upward deflections in the tape with corresponding upwardly extending, downwardly opening concavities or indentations in its lower surface below each of the protrusions. Each of the protrusions has a pierced opening located at its approximate center. The openings are elevated above the planar surface of the tape, and each opening extends through both the tape backing and the pressure-sensitive adhesive layer to facilitate the diffusion of air and moisture vapor through the tape. The tape is pierced with a multiplicity of heated needles, each having a tapered point. To control the size of the openings, the tape is pierced a predetermined distance by the heated needles. The heat of each needle expands each opening in the adhesive layer by melting and fusing the adhesive around the opening into the greater surrounding cooler mass of the pressure-sensitive adhesive layer.

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First Claim