Background: Chronic or hard-to-heal wounds fail to proceed through an orderly and timely healing process, resulting in a lack of anatomic and functional integrity. Infection is a common driver of nonhealing processes; therefore, infection prevention and management are essential components to healing chronic wounds. Inexpensive specialized cleansers, such as pure hypochlorous acid (pHA), can be used to cleanse vulnerable wounds to reduce microbial burden, thereby reducing the risk of infection and significantly decreasing the likelihood of the patient developing a costly wound complication.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the critical limb ischemia (CLI) Global Society aims to develop improved clinical guidance that will inform better care standards to reduce tissue loss and amputations during and following the new SARS-CoV-2 era. This will include developing standards of practice, improve gaps in care, and design improved research protocols to study new chronic limb-threatening ischemia treatment and diagnostic options. Following a round table discussion that identified hypotheses and suppositions the wound care community had during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the CLI Global Society undertook a critical review of literature using PubMed to confirm or rebut these hypotheses, identify knowledge gaps, and analyse the findings in terms of what in wound care has changed due to the pandemic and what wound care providers need to do differently as a result of these changes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere is growing evidence on an interconnection between the venous and lymphatic systems in venous leg ulceration, and the possible effects of prolonged oedema and lymphatic impairment in delayed wound healing. Compression therapy is a widely accepted treatment for venous and lymphatic disorders, as it decreases recurrence rates and prolongs the interval between recurrences. Compression bandages improve venous return, increase the volume and rate of venous flow, reduce oedema and stimulate anti-inflammatory processes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChronic wounds are wounds that have failed to heal after 3 months of appropriate wound care. Previous reports have identified a diverse collection of bacteria in chronic wounds, and it has been postulated that bacterial profile may contribute to delayed healing. The purpose of this study was to perform a microbiome assessment of the Wound Healing and Etiology (WE-HEAL) Study cohort, including underlying comorbidities less commonly studied in the context of chronic wounds, such as autoimmune diseases, and investigate possible relationships of the wound microbiota with clinical healing trends.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn 2015, members of the Association for the Advancement of Wound Care (AAWC), Wound Healing Society, and the Canadian Association for Enterostomal Therapy formed the International Consolidated Guidelines Taskforce to update the AAWC Venous Ulcer Guidelines to the collaborative, intersociety, endorsed International Consolidated Venous Ulcer Guideline. This "guideline of guidelines" integrates recommendations from all relevant, published evidence-based guidelines on venous ulcer care and prevention. The update process was conducted in accordance with the National Guideline Clearinghouse inclusion criteria and was informed by a systematic review of the evidence, with additional content validation of each venous ulcer management recommendation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWound Repair Regen
January 2017
Opioids are routinely used analgesics in patients with chronic wounds; however the impact of opioid exposure on wound healing is poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between opioid exposure and wound outcome in the Wound Etiology and Healing study. This longitudinal observational study was conducted on 450 subjects enrolled in the Wound Etiology and Healing biorepository.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality patient safety indicators (PSI) were developed as a metric of hospital complication rates. PSI-14 measures postoperative wound dehiscence and specifically how often a surgical wound in the abdominal or pelvic area fails to heal after abdominopelvic surgery. Wound dehiscence is estimated to occur in 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe utilization of negative pressure for medicinal purposes dates back to 600 bc. The U.S.
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