I’ve just finished the monthly update to TRIP with 668 new articles added manually and 2,500+ automatically.

When reviewing the manual uploads I often come across themes and this month the stand out, for me, was wound care. We’ve answered lots of questions on wounds over the years and the lack of evidence if obvious. So, three new reviews are very welcome:

1) Water for wound cleansing (Cochrane)

Conclusion: There is no evidence that using tap water to cleanse acute wounds in adults increases infection and some evidence that it reduces it. However there is not strong evidence that cleansing wounds per se increases healing or reduces infection. In the absence of potable tap water, boiled and cooled water as well as distilled water can be used as wound cleansing agents.

2) Wound cleansing for pressure ulcers (Cochrane)

Conclusion: We identified three small studies addressing cleansing of pressure ulcers. One noted a statistically significant improvement in pressure ulcer healing for wounds cleansed with saline spray containing Aloe vera, silver chloride and decyl glucoside (Vulnopur) when compared with isotonic saline solution. Overall, there is no good trial evidence to support use of any particular wound cleansing solution or technique for pressure ulcers.

3) Silver-Releasing Dressings in Treating Chronic Wounds (Swedish Technology Council)

Main conclusion: The scientific evidence is insufficient to determine whether silver dressings differ from dressings without silver in terms of effects on the percentage of healed wounds, wound size, pain, quality of life, percentage of infections, and use of antibiotics in treating chronic wounds. The reason is that too few studies of sufficient quality are available. The studies reviewed have not identified serious side effects or complications related to silver dressings, but they were not designed to study this specifically.