Introduction: Advancement in wound bioburden diagnostics continues to evolve highlighting the need to link laboratory findings to clinical practice.
Objective: This study aims to determine if laboratory data from a previously published study supports a correlation between use of a novel biofilm-disrupting wound gel and lower bacterial bioburden, wound size reduction, and improved healing.
Materials and methods: This is a secondary data analysis of a multicenter, prospective, randomized, open-label clinical trial performed from September 2014 through March 2016. The trial compares treatment outcomes of standard of care either with a wound gel (experimental) or triple-antibiotic maximum-strength ointment (control) looking at differences in bioburden measured at time zero (baseline) and after 4 weeks of treatment. Quantitative real-time PCR testing for bacteria and fungi, including testing for resistance factors to vancomycin and methicillin or using proprietary genetic sequencing, was used for analysis.
Results: Low or medium bacterial load at baseline correlated to an average reduction in wound size of 40% and 24%, respectively, whereas there was a 19% increase in size among wounds with a high bioburden.
Conclusion: Reducing wound bioburden could result in a clinically relevant change in the healing trajectory. In this study, wound size reduction and increased healing percentages were superior in the experimental group.