Toward a common language: surgical wound bed preparation and debridement

Wound management encompasses a number of disciplines. As new concepts and innovative technologies develop within this exciting field, it is important to share them in spite of the divergence of clinical perspectives between the expert disciplines. One such divergence exists between surgeons and nonsurgical wound specialists. As a result, there is a need to develop a common language between these two groups. How can we develop a common language that unites surgical expertise within medical wound management? One route may be through the principles of wound bed preparation, which we believe have great potential for the communication of effective surgical techniques. Another is through sharing our concepts of surgical debridement as it is applied to different wounds by a variety of surgical disciplines. In this monograph, we try to bring these two themes together. We discuss how wound bed preparation has added to our understanding of the pathophysiology of the nonhealing wound and has provided us with some general clinical concepts. We discuss what role debridement, and then specifically surgical debridement, has to play within wound bed preparation, before analyzing the importance of surgical debridement in tissue preservation and the control of infection. We finally look at ongoing work that examines the cost of various surgical debridement techniques. We will also review a new hydrosurgery system (VERSAJET®, Smith and Nephew, Hull, UK), which we believe has an important role to play in the surgical preparation of the wound. We also expect that this paper will remind our medical colleagues about the critical role played by surgery in wound management.