Liquid covering for superficial skin wounds and its effect on wound closure in guinea pigs.

An irrigatable bandage has been developed to hold fluid over a wound. Starting with superficial skin wounds on the back of guinea pigs, the bandage has been used to hold saline or phosphate-buffered saline containing antibiotics over the wound for up to 48 hours. Animals tolerated the bandage well for this period and bacterial contamination and wound maceration were not complications. The extent of reepithelialization with time was measured histologically under three separate conditions: wound exposed to air, wound covered and kept moist, and wound covered with liquid. By 24 hours 2 +/- 1%, 16 +/- 4% and 60 +/- 8% of the wound surface interfollicular areas showed some reepithelialization, respectively. On the average, at the same time these areas showed 15 +/- 2%, 19 +/- 2% and 37 +/- 1% coverage by epithelium. By these measurements, the liquid cover enhanced the rate of wound closure significantly.