The use of antiseptics in wound care: Critique II.

This frequently referenced paper is a review of the use of antiseptics and antimicrobials in wound healing. It is often used in support of arguments for banning antiseptics. Careful reading suggests that this is a misinterpretation.

Social support: some pragmatic implications for health care professionals.

The role of social support in promoting recovery from chronic illness has been the focus of a debate within the nursing and social science research communities. This paper reviews the literature on this important issue and discusses the implications for patient management. In providing holistic patient care, health care professionals need to reflect on the impact of this research for their clinical practice.

Dressings for treating cavity wounds.

Two treatment protocols for the management of patients with non-infected cavity wounds were studied, using data obtained from both the community and the outpatients clinic. Patients were treated with either a polyurethane foam hydrophilic dressing (Allevyn) or a calcium sodium alginate dressing (Kaltostat). Although alginate fibres were found to be incorporated in tissue, both dressing regimes were found to be easy to use, effective and acceptable to patients and clinicians.

Martorell's ulcer.

This paper reports a rare form of ulceration of the lower leg and, as a result of subsequent investigations and literature review, readdresses a recent debate regarding the legitimate classification of these ulcers as a separate disease entity.

Pressure sore prevention in a hospice.

This study investigated the influence on the number of pressure sores developing in patients nursed in a hospice when three levels of pressure support were used in association with a risk assessment tool. The study was designed as phase one of an epidemiological study examining the use of a modified Norton scoring system. This was followed by a second phase of the study, when patients were allocated to pressure sore support systems according to their risk assessment score.

A screen for modifiers of Deformed function in Drosophila.

Proteins produced by the homeotic genes of the Hox family assign different identifies to cells on the anterior/posterior axis. Relatively little is known about the signalling pathways that modulate their activities or the factors with which they interact to assign specific segmental identifies. To identify genes that might encode such functions, we performed a screen for second site mutations that reduce the viability of animals carrying hypomorphic mutant alleles of the Drosophila homeotic locus, Deformed.

The aetiology and healing rates of chronic leg ulcers.

Data from published studies of leg ulcer aetiology concentrate on venous and arterial disease as the main aetiological factors. The records of 490 patients attending leg ulcer clinics over a two-year period in 1992 and 1993 were reviewed. Although 58% of the ulcers studied resulted from venous disease, the remainder were caused by a wide range of factors.

Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction detection of collagen transcripts in healing human wounds.

The aim of this study was to analyse the expression of COl1A1, COl1A2 and COl3A1 in 6 mm diameter punch biopsies obtained from human wounds. Total RNA was isolated from biopsies taken from Sacrococcygeal pilonidal sinus excision cavities at weekly intervals between surgery and clinical closure. cDNAs were generated from the RNA using reverse transcriptase and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplifications performed with oligonucleotide primer pairs specific for regions of the COl1A1, COl1A2 and COl3A1 genes.

Screening for the small fetus: a study of the relative efficacies of ultrasound biometry and symphysiofundal height.

In this study 3 different methods of screening for birth-weight < 10th percentile in pregnancy were evaluated both individually and in combination; 1,135 women with singleton pregnancies were studied. Measurements of symphysiofundal height by tape measure, and amniotic fluid index and fetal abdominal circumference by ultrasound imaging, were made at 18, 24, 28, 34 and 38 weeks. At none of these gestational ages did amniotic fluid index perform well as a screening test for birth-weight < 10th percentile.

Trisomy 22: prenatal diagnosis--a case report.

Multiple abnormalities of a fetus were detected on a routine antenatal anomaly scan at 19 weeks' gestation. Amniocentesis and karyotype analysis showed trisomy 22. The ultrasound and postmortem features are presented.

Evidence for somatic translocation during potato dihaploid induction.

Potato dihaploid PDH55 (Solanum tuberosum) is exclusively euploid (2n = 24) but apparently contains and expresses DNA from dihaploid inducer IVP48 (S. phureja). Genomic in situ hybridization (GISH) suggested IVP48 DNA incorporated stably into PDH55 by somatic translocation.

Management of a lesion in a patient with necrobiosis lipoidica diabeticorum.

A report of the wound management of a persistent leg ulcer.

Circumference, area and volume of the healing wound.

This paper describes a study of pilonidal excision wounds and abdominal wounds in which measurements of the wounds' volume and area were compared to their circumferences. A structured light method is proposed for the measurement of the three-dimensional circumference of acute cavity wounds, as circumference.is not easily measured by standard methods owing to the complex shape of some wounds.

Stimulation of glycosaminoglycan synthesis in cultured fibroblasts by hyperbaric oxygen.

In this study we examined the effect of hyperbaric oxygen treatment on the synthesis of glycosaminoglycans by fibroblasts isolated from wounds and normal skin. Fibroblast cultures were exposed to seven treatments of intermittent hyperbaric oxygen, and then metabolically labelled with D-[6-(3)H] glucosamine. Hyaluronic acid and proteoglycan synthesis were determined by measuring the radioactivity precipitated with cetylpyridinium chloride before and after digestion with hyaluronidase.

Hue, saturation and intensity in the healing wound image.

A report which describes a method of monitoring the morphological colour changes of healing wounds using hue, saturation and intensity image analysis.