Effect of bandaging on second intention healing of wounds of the distal limb in horses.

The study investigates the effect of bandaging with a non-occlusive dressing on the healing of distal limb wounds in horses. It found that bandaging affected the rate of wound contraction, increased wound retraction and promoted excessive granulation tissue, but without affecting the overall healing time.

Methodology

• The researchers carried out the study using wounds in 33 adult horses over a span of five years. These horses acted as the study subjects.
• The researchers created standardised, full-thickness wounds on the skin overlying the dorsomedial aspect of the horses’ mid-metacarpus.
• Of the 33 horses, 17 had the wounds bandaged with a non-occlusive dressing that was covered by gauze-coated cotton wool and secured with adhesive tape. The remaining 16 horses’ wounds were not bandaged.
• For the course of nine weeks, the wounds were photographed weekly. The researchers used these photographs for electronic image analysis.

Findings

• The study discovered several significant findings influenced by the bandage, the specific week and the interaction of the bandage with the week (meaning the healing rate varied from week to week with different levels of healing).
• No differences were observed in wound area initially after the wound creation, regardless if the wound was bandaged or not.
• However, from the first week onwards, differences started to appear in the bandaged and unbandaged wounds. Throughout the study, bandaged wounds exhibited greater and longer-lasting retraction compared to unbandaged wounds which retracted for only two weeks before beginning to contract.
• Furthermore, the bandaged wounds had excessive granulation tissue necessitating regular trimming. This was not the case for the unbandaged wounds.
• Despite these evident differences, the bandaging had no effects on the total days required for wound healing or the overall rate of healing.

Conclusions

• The researchers recommend treating these results with caution until further confirmation through contemporaneously controlled studies are carried out.
• The result of this study suggests that using a non-occlusive dressing in a three-layer bandage on a wound leads to increased wound retraction, manages the rate of wound contraction, and promotes more granulation tissue.
• Finally, this study suggests that if the excessive granulation tissue is removed regularly, the bandaging has no impact on the overall healing time.