Wound Knowledge: Understanding Surgical Wounds

Few people care about the healing process after the surgical wound is sutured.

Most people only pay attention to the healing result and whether scars are left. This article wants to take you understand the principle of surgical wound healing, so come and take a look with me.

What is a Surgical Wound?

Surgical wounds are usually incisions made by a scalpel in the skin. Depending on the size of the incision and its location, there are two different types of wounds :

1. Closed Surgical Wound: A simply sutured surgical wound whose edges have been closed in the operating room with sutures, staples, or adhesive sutures. There are no lesions, it is visually distinguishable, and it heals quickly.

2. Postoperative open wound: This kind of wound is a wound whose edges cannot be closed due to severe loss of skin tissue. Generally, the wound is relatively deep, and a drainage tube will be placed in the wound to promote the drainage of the pus inside.

What are the types of surgical wounds:

· Class I - Clean, uninfected, primarily closed, and in a low-risk anatomical area

· Class II – clean contamination, no evidence of infection, but possibly in high-risk anatomical areas

· Class III – Contaminated, possibly when an object comes into contact with a wound of increased risk, such as a gunshot wound

· Class IV – Dirty contamination or dirty infection, deactivated tissue, possible exposure to materials such as feces