An introduction to veterinary wound healing

Animal wounds are a common occurrence in veterinary practice and are most likely traumatic or resulting from surgical procedure. Clinical management aims to provide a rapid return to health while eliminating risks of delayed wound healing.

A moist wound healing environment

A moist healing environment encourages essential cellular activity, collagen formation and vital contraction processes. Wound dressings have subsequently developed to manage the wound environment more actively, by managing the factors associated with delayed healing.

The need for specific properties varies according to the wound and different wounds will require different dressings at different stages to get the best results. Advanced dressings are principally designed to actively re-hydrate or to absorb and retain excess wound fluid as well as protecting against further trauma. They may also be required to manage infection, contamination and inflammation.

There are several key principles to adopt when using advanced dressings which will maximise the outcome and make for easy application and removal.

Preparing the wound to heal

In all cases a full medical history should be attained to establish related or unrelated conditions that may affect healing, management or recovery. Prior to examination the area around the wound should be clipped with a generous margin so that the extent of injury is visible and to allow the dressing to overlap the wound by at least 2cm.

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Dressing selection guide

Product	Necrotic	Sloughy	Contaminated / Infected	Granulating	Epitheliaising	Exuding	Delicate tissue / grafts
Activon Tube	Necrotic:	Sloughy:	Contaminated / Infected:	Granulating:	Epitheliaising:	Exuding
Algivon	Necrotic:	Sloughy:	Contaminated / Infected:	Granulating:	Epitheliaising:
Algivon Plus*	Necrotic:	Sloughy:	Contaminated / Infected:	Granulating:	Epitheliaising:
Actilite	Necrotic:	Sloughy:	Contaminated / Infected:			Exuding	Delicate tissue / grafts
Activon Tulle	Necrotic:	Sloughy:	Contaminated / Infected:		Epitheliaising:	Exuding
Eclypse range	Necrotic: secondary dressing	Sloughy: secondary dressing	Contaminated / Infected: secondary dressing	Granulating: secondary dressing	Epitheliaising: secondary dressing	Exuding Yes Can be used as a primary or secondary dressing on highly exuding wounds	Delicate tissue / grafts Yes Adherent, Border & Border Oval have soft silicone wound contact layers
Advazorb range	Necrotic:	Sloughy:	Contaminated / Infected:	Granulating:		Exuding Yes Can be used as a primary or secondary dressing on low-medium exuding wounds	Delicate tissue / grafts Yes Silfix & Border have soft silicone wound contact layers
Silflex	Necrotic:	Sloughy:	Contaminated / Infected:	Granulating:	Epitheliaising:	Exuding	Delicate tissue / grafts

Guide to wound preparation

Wound	General guide to preparation prior to dressing
Early traumatic wounds (less than 4 hours old)	Wounds that are treated within 4 hours of occurring have a good chance of uneventful direct closure. The wound should be generously lavaged using saline and explored to establish the extent of trauma and any presence of foreign material. Anaesthesia may be required to do this effectively. Closure may be achieved by surgical means if the wound is sufficiently clean and enough viable tissue is available.
Long-standing traumatic wounds	Wounds that are over a day old may begin to show signs of deterioration in the form of contamination, infection and dead or devitalised tissue. The wound should be explored thoroughly and non-viable tissue removed. Anaesthesia is likely to be required to examine the extent of injury thoroughly. Thorough lavage with normal saline is recommended.
Surgical wounds	Surgical wounds, following closure should be simply cleansed with normal saline and patted dry with woven gauze prior to dressing.