[Local wound care: evidence-based treatments and dressings]

Patients with open wounds require specific local-wound care. There is huge variety in methods of local-wound care. This is due not only to the many different types of wounds but also to the widely varying preferences of doctors and nurses, and to the lack of strong evidence and relevant guidelines regarding the most appropriate form of local-wound care. In 19 systematic literature reviews from the Cochrane Collaboration on surgical and traumatic wounds and ulcers (venous, arterial and diabetic) information can be found on local-wound treatment. Eleven of these reviews were limited to strong evidence for the use of: tissue adhesives for surgical and traumatic wounds; foam dressings in surgical wounds healing by secondary intention; (intermittent) compression, bilayer artificial skin and lidocaine-prilocaine cream for venous ulcers; hydrogel and in-shoe orthotics for diabetic-foot ulcers; negative pressure for chronic wounds, and cleansing of acute wounds with clean tap water.