A comparison of two culturing methods for chronic wounds.

Bacterial infection has always been a potential complication of any wound. Controversy exists regarding the significance of bacteria in chronic wounds. It is important to accurately diagnose wound infection by bacterial identification and quantification in order to prevent unnecessary and/or inappropriate treatments and to minimize patient complications. The primary function of culturing is to identify infection in a wound. The tissue culture is an accepted standard for measuring infection, although swab cultures are commonplace in the clinical setting. The purpose of this study was to test the differences in bacterial counts and identification in swab and tissue cultures taken from the same wound site of 10 chronic wounds. It was hypothesized that if swab and tissue cultures are equally effective in identifying and quantifying the organisms in a chronic wound, they are equally effective methods in determining infection in the chronic wound. The reliability, validity and limitations of the study are discussed, as well as the statistical analyses and results.