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Abstract
A wound could happen at any accident or surgery. Generally, bleeding wounds, serious wounds and infectious wounds need to be taken care for recovery and in case of germ infection. Wound recovery and management is a complicated and collaborative process, including wound pre-cleaning, wound healing, infectious prevention, germ treatment and treatment strategy. The application of wound dressings play very critical roles in wound healing and infectious prevention. There are many different types of wound dressings such as silver-containing hydrophilic fiber dressings, antibacterial dressings and moist dressings. These dressings display their own advantages and disadvantages in wound treatments. As burn surgeons, we have to deal with many different patients with different burn conditions every day. To us, it would be very important and helpful to have a good or right type of dressing at the right time for the right wound situation. In this article, we will discuss different wound dressings and their applications in wound treatment and recovery.
Keywords: Wound; Wound infection; Wound dressings; Hydrogel dressings; Antimicrobial dressings
Introduction
A wound or trauma happens once skin, the largest human organ, is broken at any accident or surgery. Generally, wounds, especially serious wounds needs to be taken care for recovery and in case of germ infection [1,2]. It is necessary to treat and monitor the wounds if they are bleeding, large, deep or infectious [3]. The recovery and management of severe wounds is a complicated and collaborative process including infectious prevention, germ treatment and treatment strategy [2,4], with the involvement of doctors, nurses, patients, pathologists and wound specialists. Particularly, the application of wound dressings play very critical roles in wound healing and infectious prevention [5]. There are many different types of wound dressings such as silver-containing hydrophilic fiber dressing, antibacterial dressing and wet dressing. Based on different materials, they can be classified as foams [6,7] gauze [8], transparent films [9,10], alginates [11], composites [11], hydrocolloids [12,13] and hydrogel [5,12,14-17]. These dressings display their own advantages and disadvantages in wound treatment. They are used so frequently in our routine wound treatments. However, it is a tough challenge for doctors and nurses to routinely choose a good and right wound dressing for the right wound situation at the right time. Meanwhile, a good dressing with high...