A crucial aspect in effective wound care is exudate management.
Excessive presence of exudate fluids typically involve wound exposure to elevated inflammatory cytokine levels and proteolytic enzymes. Pooling of exudate fluids also creates a medium for pathogen growth. Each and all of these factors may delay the healing. Peri-wound tissues may further be negatively affected by excess exudates, which wet newly regenerated tissues or periwound skin, resulting in tissue cross-contamination, additional inflammatory irritation or maceration of the periwound skin.
On the other hand, a dressing must not drain the wound-bed completely, as moisture is required as the medium for transport of nutrients and immunological factors to the healing tissues and is essential for proliferation and migration of the cells which form the re-epithelialization. A good wound dressing should therefore correctly maintain that moisture balance in the wound-bed, while also managing the wound-bed and peri-wound temperatures by maintaining a warm healing environment. In addition, such good dressings should provide mechanical protection to the wound from external or bodyweight forces and also, be tolerant and resistant to these forces so that their structure would not disintegrate during the time of use or while being removed for replacement.
These expected performances of wound dressings should all be examined objectively, quantitatively and in a standardized manner, through dedicated bioengineering test methods that mimic real-world conditions; the clinical relevance and principles of these tests will be discussed in this talk.
This HARTMANN-supported webinar was broadcasted in WoundsWEEK.
