An 85 year old woman presented with chronic, heavily exudating circumferential left lower limb wounds with +3 pitting edema, and pain secondary to venous insufficiency and suspicious for pyoderma gangranosum. Various treatments included cleansing with a bleach solution, applying a alginate, foam, and absorbent pads. The limb was wrapped with a compression wrap. Whirlpool was performed three times a week.  The patient described the pain at a level 10 on a scale of 1-10, decreased mobility, the inability to sleep. This treatment yielded little progress. The wound was then treated with a new, textile based, antimicrobial dressing using novel fliud management technology. The limb was wrapped from toes to knee. The textile actively pumps exudates away from the wounds into a secondary dressing. The silver in the textile acts to reduce odor and prevent the dressing from becoming a source of bacteria. Changing of the secondary dressing was done on a daily basis and the base material was changed every seven days. Within one week, the ulcers were smaller and the exudate lessened. Within 13 weeks, the odor, pain, and exudates were reduced and/or eliminated. The patient stated that pain had decreased to zero, ambulation ablility increased, and sleep improved. Nursing care time decreased from 45 minutes to less than 15 minutes. Textile antimicrobial dressings provide an efficient treatment to pump excess moisture away from the wound, provide an environment to decrease the microbial load allowing improved quality of life and decreased nursing care.

Textile amtimicrobial dressing Select Silver (Milliken, Spartanburg, S.C.)