Initial healing of sternotomy wounds: correlation between preoperative data and wound inflammatory cell response.

Local inflammation after a surgical incision is an essential prerequisite for wound healing and later scar formation both in children and adults. However, the underlying regulatory mechanisms are still poorly known and need further investigations. In this study, one hundred sternotomy patients, operated on routinely for cardiac disease, were studied with the Cellstick device to harvest wound inflammatory cells for differential count and subsequent computerized analysis using an artificial neural network. As a result a nonparametric line of ranked nodes was obtained reflecting wound inflammatory cell response in individual patients at hour 24 post surgery. A number of preoperative and operative parameters were recorded to see their possible correlation with the node values of wound inflammatory cell response. It was found that the age of the patient had a remarkable role in this respect while a majority of laboratory values, if within reference values of healthy persons, had a minor correlation or no correlation at all. Therefore, individual and genetic factors seemed to play a dominant role providing that the patient had a good or moderate general condition and surgical site infection was avoided.

Neural network adapted to wound cell analysis in surgical patients.

Assessment of the real state of wound healing of closed surgical wounds is uncertain both clinically and from conventional laboratory tests. Therefore, a novel approach based on early analysis of exactly timed wound cells, computerized further with an artificial neural network, was developed. At the end of routine surgery performed on 481 children under 18 years of age, a specific wound drain Cellstick™ was inserted subcutaneously between the wound edges to harvest wound cells. The Cellsticks™ were removed from 1 to 50 hours, mainly at hour 3 or 24 postsurgery. Immediately, the cellular contents were washed out using a pump constructed for the purpose. After cytocentrifugation, the cells were stained and counted differentially. Based on their relative proportions at selected time intervals, an artificial self-organizing neural map was developed. This was further transformed to a unidirectional linear graph where each node represents one set of relative cell quantities. As early as 3 hours, but more precisely 24 hours after surgery, the location of the nodes on this graph showed individually the patients' initial speed of wound inflammatory cell response. Similarly, timed Cellstick™ specimens from new surgical patients could be analyzed, computerized, and compared with these node values to assess their initial speed in wound inflammatory cell response. Location of the node on the graph does not express the time lapse after surgery but the speed of wound inflammatory cell response in relation to that of other patients.

Evaluation of a new cellulose sponge-tipped swab for microbiological sampling: a laboratory and clinical investigation.

A new type of swab (Cellswab; Cellomeda, Turku, Finland), utilizing a highly absorbent cellulose viscose sponge material, was compared to some traditional swabs. The survival of 14 aerobic and 10 anaerobic and microaerophilic bacterial species in the Cellswab, two commercial swab transport systems (Copan, Brescia, Italy, and Orion Diagnostica, Espoo, Finland), and one Dacron swab (Technical Service Consultants Ltd. [TSC], Heywood, United Kingdom) was evaluated. Bacteria were suspended in broth, into which the swabs were dipped. The Cellswab absorbed 1.3 times more fluid and released 3.5 times more fluid upon plating than the other swabs. Aerobic bacteria were stored in dry tubes, the others in transport medium, at 4 degrees C and room temperature (RT), for up to 14 days. Swab samples were transferred to plates at 0, 1, 2, 4, 7, and 14 days. For 10 strains the Cellswab yielded > or =10% of the original CFU for longer than all the other swabs. In the clinical study, the ability of the Cellswab to detect beta-hemolytic streptococci from throat samples (n = 995) was compared to that of the TSC Dacron swab. The swabs performed equally, both when their samples were transferred to plates immediately and after storage for 1 day at 4 degrees C or RT. The changes in normal microbiota after storage were also similar. The Cellswab was found to perform at least as well as ordinary swabs. It was better at storing fastidious strains, and at keeping bacteria viable for long storage times; it might well be a useful replacement or complement to ordinary swabs.