PolyMem QuadraFoam** and Infection Control

“Wounds do not heal until infection is eradicated.”¹

Reducing or eliminating the occurrence of infection is constantly on the minds of every healthcare provider.  The best efforts of prevention sometimes do not work and a patient will develop an infection.  Around the world nearly all tested chronic wounds are colonized by a variety of pathogens, many are infected, and about 38% of surgical sites in the United States develop an infection.²  Wound infections can be the main reason or a contributing factor to delayed healing.³  Wound pain reduces the patient’s immune response which can lead to infection, but pain can also be an indication that there is an infection present.^2,3  Clinicians have a wide range of wound care products available to help manage wounds that are infected; but if ONE wound care product can help you to reduce and/or eliminate these things, why would you use anything else? 

PolyMem QuadraFoam dressings, especially PolyMem Silver* dressings, are the ONE wound care product you need to help you win the battle with both wound infections and pain.  PolyMem dressings continuously cleanse the wound bed while in place and lock the dirt, slough, fibrin, bioburden or microbes onto the dressing.  This helps to eliminate the need to manually cleanse the wound during dressing changes.  While cleansing, PolyMem dressings are pulling the body’s natural nutrients and growth factors to the wound site to help promote healing and help combat the delay in healing caused by wound infections and pain.  Growth factors are an important part of promoting healing in a delayed wound, “play(ing) an important role in tissue repair by participating in the regulation of cell proliferation, migration, differentiation, and organ development.”⁴ 

PolyMem QuadraFoam dressings also help relieve persistent wound-related pain by reducing inflammation at and around the wound site and inhibiting the nociceptor pain response.  By helping relieve the patient from wound-related pain, PolyMem dressings allow the patient’s body to focus more on fighting an infection than fighting the chronic inflammatory response in the wound.  PolyMem dressings also help to relieve procedure-related pain by not adhering to the wound bed and not causing additional pain during dressing changes.  By helping relieve persistent wound- and procedure-related pain, PolyMem may be helping to alleviate psychological stress which “evidence suggests… result(s) in the dysregulation of immune function”.²  The relief of psychological stress may help to increase the patient-caregiver relationship when treating wounds and reduce the patient’s pain as related to the possible or present infection. 

PolyMem Silver* dressings contain small-particle silver which have been proven to kill 99.9% of the populations of tested organisms.**  All PolyMem dressings pull exudate, drainage, dirt, slough, and fibrin into the dressing matrix; PolyMem Silver dressings also help manage bioburden and kill microbes in contact with the dressing.  Rather than placing silver directly into the wound bed, PolyMem Silver’s silver is built into the dressing to help eliminate the bioburden and microbes in the dressing, doing potentially less damage to the healing wound. 

Examples of PolyMem QuadraFoam dressing in use on infected wounds:

 Acute surgicalPost-sternotomyFoci of infectionSebaceous cyst

PolyMem QuadraFoam dressings are available in multiple shapes, sizes, thicknesses, and with or without adhesive borders.  PolyMem Silver dressings are available for wounds at risk for infection or wounds with an infection.*

Contact us to receive additional information on PolyMem QuadraFoam formulation’s use on infected wounds or to have a representative visit you.