Point-of-Care Wound Blotting with Alcian Blue Grading versus Fluorescence Imaging for Biofilm Detection and Predicting 90-Day Healing Outcomes.

Abstract

Biofilm infection has been identified as a crucial factor of the pathogenesis of chronic wound, but wound biofilm diagnosis remains as an unmet clinical need. We previously proposed a modified wound blotting technique using Alcian blue staining for biofilm detection that was characterized as being non-invasive, time-saving, non-expansive, and informative for biofilm distribution. In this study, we adapted a novel Alcian blue grading method as the severity of biofilm infection for the wound blotting technique and compared its biofilm detection efficacy with MolecuLight i:X- a point-of-care florescence imaging device to detect bacteria and biofilm in wounds. Moreover, their predictive value of complete wound healing at 90 days was analyzed. When validated with wound culture results in the 53 enrolled subjects with chronic wounds, the modified wound blotting method showed a strong association with wound culture, while MolecuLight i:X only exhibited a weak association. In predicting 90-day wound outcomes, the modified wound blotting method showed a strong association (Kendall’s tau value = 0.563, p < 0.001), and the wound culture showed a moderate association (Spearman’s rho = 0.535, p < 0.001), but MolecuLight i:X exhibited no significant association (p = 0.184). In this study, modified wound blotting with the Alcian blue grading method showed superior value to MolecuLight i:X both in biofilm detection and predictive validity in 90-day wound-healing outcomes.