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Patient has chronic venous insufficiency, discharged back in March 2024, lost to follow up then came back for recurrence of LLL venous ulcer due to trauma. Does not look open to me. Any advice?
Dec 29, 2024 by Guest User,
1 replies
Cathy Milne
APRN, MSN, CWOCN-AP

Thanks for the photo and this is why a wound photo can cause controversy! A photo without a history is...just a photo.  First of all - was there drainage on the dressing or sock? When was the last time the patient reported drainage(or the sock or pants sticking?  What did the previous photo (the one documenting a healed wound) look like? Your photo certainly has some epithelialization within the "red" area.

I find myself in person asking my self the same question - and this is how I solve it. If looking directly over head and looking straight down at the  at the wound - a wound like this clearly would look open. I could use an otoscope to help magnify my findings - but I find that shining a good light horizontonally across the wound will help me determine dull tissue (not reflecting light and therefore epithelialized as it is not wet) vs. open tissue (not epithelialized)- where the tissue can be visualized as wet or glistening. Another trick  is to use silver nitrate - assuming you have not washed or wetted the area - if there is moisture, the silver nitrate will stain the area - and determine if wound is "healed" or not....

I don't know if I can commit on this one without more info - but assuming there is no drainage, and the skin is "dull",  I'd say it is epithelized - but surely scar tissue is not well formed..so it will need protection - this patient is one warm day, or ham sandwich or not wearing compression for a few hours away from reopening - so compress and protect the immature scar well.

Which then brings me to the definition of "healed" - clearly a matter of debate between regulators and payers and clinicians and clinical trial definition.....

Gould L, Li WW. Defining complete wound
closure: Closing the gap in clinical trials and practice [published
correction appears in Wound Repair Regen. 2019 Jul;27(4):435. doi:
10.1111/wrr.12725]. Wound Repair Regen. 2019;27(3):201-224. doi:10.1111/wrr.12707

Would be happy to hear from my other WoundReference colleagues, if they wish to chime in. Thanks for sharing your pic!
Dec 30, 2024
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