This 17 year old had an infected surgical incision after spinal surgery. Initial treatment was traditional gauze dressings, soaked in betadine and changed twice a day. The patient was also on IV antibiotics. After 2 ½ weeks the wound dimensions were slowly decreasing but there was an increasing amount of slough forming in the wound base.

New wound care orders based on principles of moist wound healing were obtained; in this instance, a hydrofiber dressing was used to fill the wound bed, covered by an absorbent foam dressing and changed twice a week. Moist wound healing has been shown to debride slough from wounds through autolysis and less frequent dressing changes have been shown to allow faster healing of wounds. For this patient the wound was essentially healed one week after initiating wound care based on moist wound healing.

11.5 x 5 x 3.25cm non-healing surgical wound

1-week after moist wound healing, initiated rapid progress is evident