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Clinical Research
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Collagen/Cellulose/Silver (CCS) dressing and Negative Pressure Wound Therapy (NPWT) for Difficult to Heal Wounds First Author: John lantis Authors: J Lantis MD, C Gendics RN, G Todd MD Introduction: Previous studies have indicated that the chronic wound environment contains elevated levels of bacteria, which result in an imbalance in the healing process. Products containing silver are known to be bacteriocidal, against an array of bacteria. As a part of its mechanism NPWT enhances wound healing by decreasing the bacterial load in the wound. Based upon the above theoretical data we postulate that combining the two methods of bacterial control may enhance stalled NPWT wound healing. Methods: Seven patients, four with open transmetattarsal amputations, two with sacral wounds and one with a heel ulcer had been treated for a minimum of 8 weeks with NPWT. The bacteria colonizing their wounds included; E. Coli, Pseudomonas, Morganella, Staph. Aureus and Enterococcus. All seven patients had reached a plateau in their wound healing trajectory. Therefore, once they had positive cultures underlayment of ORC/Collagen/silver was added. Results: The patients wound healing trajectory increased significantly after the initiation of ORC/Collagen/Silver. Not in all cases were follow up cultures obtained as the wounds were healing. Discussion: We document clinical utility of combining ORC/Collagen/Silver for an array of chronic wounds being treated with NPWT, while we propose a possible synergistic anti-microbial mechanism of action. |
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