Getting to Granulation and Beyond: Maximize

As a clinician, your objectives when faced with a wound are like those of the white blood cell: rid the wound of contamination and necrotic tissue and provide an environment that promotes granulation. These objectives are best achieved by combining knowledge of the body’s own wound healing processes with accurate assessment of tissue viability, proper lavage, surgical and/or autolytic debridement, and moist wound management.

Wound Healing basics
There are three overlapping phases of wound healing, each of which sets the stage for the phase that follows. The wound must spend time in all three phases for full healing to occur.
The inflammatory/debridement phase typically occurs during the first 3 to 5 days after wounding.1 White blood cells move into the wound and perform selective, autolytic debridement of bacteria, foreign material, and necrotic tissue. This debridement is selective because only injured or dead cells and damaged matrix are removed; healthy tissue is spared. Think of the white blood cells as tiny premier surgeons, cutting away only unhealthy tissues with microscopic accuracy! The moist wound healing techniques discussed below are designed to support white blood cell function so as to take advantage of their ‘surgical expertise’. As the inflammatory/debridement phase wraps up, macrophages secrete cytokines that stimulate activity by the cells involved in the repair phase of healing. […]