Efficacy and safety of an anti-infection topical desiccating agent (DEBRICHEM) in hard-to-heal wounds.

A single centre, non-comparative evaluation was undertaken to observe the clinical results achieved when following best practice for the application of Debrichem. The treatment protocol involved use of this debridement product plus standard of care. The sample comprised 21 patients with complex, non-healing wounds of various aetiologies. One patient dropped out of the evaluation for unknown reasons. Wound types were either venous leg ulcers (n=16) or post-traumatic wounds (n=25). The mean wound duration was 22 months (range: 2 weeks-17 years). Over the 4-week follow-up period, there was a decline in the mean percentage of devitalised tissue present on the wounds, reducing from 69% at baseline to 49% at week 4. Most of the devitalised tissue was slough, for which the mean baseline percentage was 63% compared with an endpoint of 49%. Conversely, the mean percentage of granulation tissue increased from 31% at baseline to 51% at week 4. The mean visual analogue pain score reported during application was 4/10, where 0 represents no pain. However, general wound-related pain scores improved during the follow-up period, with no scores above 2 at week 2, compared with five at baseline. The results indicate that Debrichem is a safe and effective method of debridement that requires minimal training and is single use.

Venous and lymphovenous lower limb wound outcomes in specialist UK wound and lymphoedema clinics.

This article explores the impact of combining tissue viability and lymphoedema techniques on optimising time to healing. AIM: To investigate the healing rates observed in patients who presented to wound and lymphoedema specialist clinics, located in the south eastern region of England, with venous/lymphovenous ulceration of the lower limb during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2022 (30 months in all). METHODOLOGY: A retrospective analysis of patient outcomes. RESULTS: 1041 patients were referred to the service, with a healing rate of 88.5% over 78 days. DISCUSSION: When comparing 2013-2019 healing rates/time to healing vs 2020-2022 there was a decrease of 1.5% in the rate of healing and a mean reduction in time to healing of 40 days. CONCLUSION: Despite the pandemic the service was able to maintain previous levels of outcomes and observed a decrease in the mean time to healing.

Smoking and its effects on the healing process of chronic wounds.

Smoking has a negative impact on skin health. Numerous studies have effectively linked smoking with delayed wound healing and healing complications. Research has identified cigarette smoking affects wound healing at a cellular level. Reducing fibroblast activity and keratinocyte migration. Such is the concern around the affects that smoking has on wound healing that some question whether smoking abstinence should be a pre requisite before some surgical procedures. This article will discuss current research and clinical studies that have investigated impaired wound healing as a result of cigarette smoking.