Hello I'm Yerin Kim struggling with mouse wound healing research.
I've just made full excisional wounds on mouse back and put Tegaderm film(3m) to protect it from infections.
And I found that these dressings should be changed everyday from few papaers.
But I realized that there are quite amount of missed skin tissues when the Tegaderm films are changed to new ones.( because the film is sticky)
Because I'm planning to work on Protein & RNA work and also many histological assays with thses skin tissuses, I'm wondering if these skin tissues losses by changing dressing can affect the results.
Should I have to change dressing everyday?
Thank you for reading my question :)
Hi Kim,
My former mate in the lab was also working on wound healing in rats actually. Because the tegaderm is sticky and remove the skin tissues, she changes the tegaderm every 3 days when she want to apply the drug. If you do not need to apply the substance of test everyday, you may need to be changing after 3 or 5 days
I hope the response is able to answer your question
To Wasiu Gbolahan Balogun
I really appreciate your kind response.
I'll try changing dressing every 3 days.
Thank you and I hope you to have a great day :)
Hi there Kim,
The reasons for changing a dressing are: 1-blood pouring out; 2- pus pouring out; 3-infection; 4-stink; 5-a "planned" or programmed dressing change.
The last group is usually where a topical agent has been added and the manufacturer states that it will only work for a certain period of time. If that is the case, then you need to change the topical agent, which will usually involve changing the outer dressing. If all you are doing is sampling wound fluid, then you could avoid dressing changes by piercing the Tegaderm with a needle and syringe and aspirating out (or washing out with saline) the fluid you need to obtain. You can then re-seal the wound with another piece of Tegaderm over the top.
As long as the wound looks clean and healthy, then there is no absolute requirement to change the dressing. This has the added advantage of avoiding the kind of trauma that you have described.
In answer to your question "Will this trauma affect the results?" The answer is "Yes", as it makes the wound larger and adds in an extra inflammatory stimulus that was not there before the micro-trauma of the dressing change.
Hi Kim,
best practice for dressing change is usually a week unless there is excess exudate, an infection or you have other reasons, for example ...need to remove the dressing, to clean the wound, apply medication or assess wound size. This is in human wound research. I would argue the mice deserve the same best practice especially if you are assess time to wound healing.
i wonder if a foam dressing would be better than a polyurethane film. Both have gaseous exchange but the trauma from the foam will be far less.
In human skin tear research we use a hydrogel and film and then leave it for a week if possible as you will decrease temp each time you change the dressing and cleanse the wound. This will mean the body will take 4 hours or more to get back to body temp and start the granualtaion process. In my research with people with venous leg ulcers we we able to show the dressing beneath the compression could be left for one week before changing.
you don't tell us why you are using film in the first place and what you are testing in your mice. A brief background may help us to better help you with suggestions.
let me .know if you further questions, I'm happy to help if I can
i wish you a successfully research outcome.
kind regards
Carolina
Of course the great benefit of transparent adhesive dressings is that the wound can be visually assessed through the dressing. You can even map out wound sizes through Tegaderm.
I'm really really thanksful to your advice. It helped me a lot.
To give you more information about my research,
I'm planning to give mouse material through oral administration .(not by topical administration to their skin)
So, I'm wondering if it woud be okay if I just leave Tegaderm films and don't change them at all until the wounds are closed(maybe for 10 days)
Thank you
Unless the wound looks like it has a problem, then there is no indication to change the dressing.
Hey Kim,
Since you are not applying the test substance on the skin, you may not change the tegaderm until there is some level of healing except you will want to measure or snap the clotting process. If not, then i think you should not change periodically
To Ciaran O'Boyle, Carolina Dragica Weller and Wasiu Gbolahan Balogun
I really appreciate your precious suggestions.
I will leave the tegaderm films unless the wounds look problemetic.
As I'm a research starter, your advice really helped me a lot!
Thank you so much :)
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