News
Has Packing Sinus Wounds Become a Ritualistic Practice?
British Journal of Nursing - Volume 15, Number 19: 26 October-8 November 2006. Tissue Viability Supplement, pages S27-30
Andy Kerr, Steve Young, Sylvie Hampton
Abstract
Wound healing is both a science and an art, and modern advances in wound management are ensuring that advanced clinicians use both clinical knowledge and experience when deciding on wound dressings and therapies. When there is a lack of evidence, then selection of dressings or therapies becomes extremely difficult and inappropriate treatment can occur. This is generally the situation with sinus wounds. There is very little evidence available to help decide on suitable dressings for these intractable wounds. The use of high frequency ultrasound (HFU) can help to guide practice on whether or not to pack sinus wounds. This article will explore the potential of ultrasound use by describing a case study of a patient with a sinus wound where HFU was used to examine the sinus and inform the practitioners on the appropriate choice of wound dressing.
Key Points
- When there is a lack of evidence, then selection of dressings or therapies become extremely difficult and inappropriate treatment can occur.
- The use of high frequency ultrasound (HFU) will help to guide practice on whether or not to pack sinus wounds.
- Would assessment falls into two main categories, invasive and non-invasive: invasive methods generally involve biopsy, which destroys the tissue.
- High frequency ultrasound could be used to image and quantify changes in the wounds as a means of non-invasively visualizing wound characteristics which would otherwise be missed using standard visual assessments alone.
See also related story directly below:
Wound Assessment Use of Longport’s Technology
Presented on BBC
Tissue Viability Consultancy Services (TVCS) recently presented the use of Longport’s technology on BBC South East News to view this news item use the link below:
www.tissueviability.org/content/default.asp?PageId=128