Adhesive-faced porous absorbent sheet and method of making same

Claim 1

A process for manufacturing an adhesive-faced, sheet-form absorbent material suitable as a wound or burn dressing, surgical drape or the like wherein said adhesive facing is apertured, which process comprises the following steps: providing an elastomeric, absorbent, porous sheet said porous sheet having an open pore structure and defining macropores on one surface of said macroporous sheet; providing an adhesive layer as a viscous mass on a release surface said adhesive layer having a cohesive strength less than the adhesive strength of the adhesive to the porous sheet; juxtaposing said porous sheet and said adhesive layer such that said adhesive layer is contiguous with the macropore-containing surface of said porous sheet; compressing said juxtaposed porous sheet and adhesive layer; and removing said applied compressive force from a resulting laminate so that when said porous sheet springs back to its previous configuration portions of the adhesive layer bond to at least some of the surfaces of the macropores of the porous sheet forming apertures in said adhesive layer.