Abstract
The importance of exudate management for maintaining local moisture balance and avoiding maceration in the chronic wound environment is well established. The authors performed the initial clinical testing of a novel wound management system, Sepaderm (Aalnex, Inc, Irvine, California), designed to vertically wick and sequester excess exudate away from wound/periwound tissues to promote a healthy wound environment. In this series of 14 patients with lower-extremity chronic venous leg and diabetic foot ulcers, the 3-component system was well tolerated and demonstrated the ability to prevent exudate leakage onto periwound tissue and reduce existing pain and itching. All ulcers lasting 1.2 to 360 months were previously treated with standard therapies, including human cell-derived skin substitutes in some of the patients. After treatment with the new system for 7 to 174 days, 8 patients had various degrees of wound closure, ranging from 44% to 100%. The 6 patients who failed to show wound closure were treated with the new system for an average of 5.7 days, but demonstrated other clinical benefits. Future studies in larger patient populations with quantitative wound closure assessments, as well as measurements of exudate, periwound maceration, and pain management, are needed.