Effective Chronic Wound Healing

Abstract

The adverse impact of chronic wounds is felt worldwide. The concerns for advanced wound care product are progressively increasing due to factors such as value for money spent in wound care products. Acute and Chronic wounds are managed in most health facilities in Ghana with sodium chloride (0.9%) infusion solution and povidone iodine fortified with metronidazole solution. The procedure is usually done by the nurse cleaning the wound with the saline solution wet gauze or cotton and then covered with the povidone iodine wet gauze for acute and chronic wounds. For chronic infected wounds, the wound is usually cleaned with saline solution and covered with wet gauze saline or currently with neomycin wound care spray or powdered antibiotics applied on the wounds. But it is popular as many wounds are covered with povidone iodine after wound cleaning in wound care practices in Ghana. Despite all these efforts, many wounds, especially chronic type wounds take a very long time to heal or sometimes fails to heal which reduce the quality of life of the people suffering from the menace. When it happens in this way, many resort to the use of local remedies to cause the wounds to heal but no avail, especially in Ghana where advanced treatment is scare. It is against this background that focal research in wound care was done in Ghana to come out with an innovative pharmaceutical wound care product effective for chronic and acute wounds healing to improve the quality of life of people as global burden of wounds escalates. In a Blind Observational Study for a period of five years in Ghana to observe the wound care products efficacy to heal wounds especially chronic types, the objective of the study was to examine a new product efficacy in chronic wound healing in the targeted population of patients with wounds. A product that has dual purpose of wound care as a cleaning and application agent, also has unique product pharmaceutical characteristics. A scalable, easy- to- use, multi-purpose, multi-use and cost-effective product, able to address the barriers or problems of wounds healing. The areas of consideration as far as wound care are concerned included: The study also sought to observe the product ability to control wound pains, control wound bleeding, control and prevent wound infection, remove wound debris, remove wound exudates effecting wounds healing at reduced healing time and with minimal scar in varied targeted patients’ population. Again, to observe the product with outcome of which to mitigate the long-term effect of chronic wounds like recurrent hospitalizations, financial burden, amputations, deformity, and frequent visit to hospital for wound care. One product, 9G Wound Solution (a cleaning and application product) manufactured by Pat J Health Company Limited, Ghana, was effective in wounds healing, especially, effective chronic wounds healing. The product was used to subject varied patients’ population with wounds on randomized basis, for wound care, and through observation the direct short, intermedial and long-term outcomes recorded of product effectiveness recorded. The outcome reported included control of wound pains, control of wound odor, control of bleeding, control of wound infection, removal of wounds exudates, removal of wound debris and ultimately reduced wound healing time to prevent wounds complications like amputations. The study was progressively extended across 10 regions in Ghana to cover 500 patient population with varied wounds. Patients’ population included those with Diabetic ulcers, Burns, pressure ulcers, venous ulcers, herpes zoster skin ulcers, Perineum wounds, Surgical abdomen-pelvic wounds, Traumatic wounds, Buruli Ulcers, gas gangrene wounds, and Mouth ulcers. The outcome of using the new wound care product were directly observed for the study period. By this observational study, the new product was observed to be superior to the controls as this product was able to heal 99% patients who had wounds, especially chronic wounds for many years, including 20years-old wound at reduced healing rate with no reoccurrence within the study period. The product scientifically readily released to the wound environment modulators capable to address the problems or barriers of wounds and simultaneously promoting modulators effective for wound healing. The product was not only effective in chronic wound healing at reduced time but also controlled wound pains shortly, controlled wound odor shortly, stopped wound bleeding, fought and controlled wound infection. However, using the product needed change of wound dressing every two days. The long-term effect of the product on target population not conclusively observed within the period of the research. We need to continuously observe the reported long-term effect of the product efficacy.