EUROPEAN  TISSUE  REPAIR  SOCIETY

NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN THE WOUND HEALING RESEARCH UNIT
UNIVERSITY OF WALES, COLLEGE OF MEDICINE, CARDIFF
Keith Harding, Wales

Further to an earlier report in this Bulletin of the work of the Wound Healing Research Unit, I am delighted to provide an update of our work. The Unit has been grouped into five main sub-groups, looking at various aspects of the subject of wounds and wound healing.

Biological Research

This work is headed by Dr Keith Moore and is concentrating on lymphocyte and macrophage activation states in acute and chronic wounds. The creation of an acute and chronic wound model in using human tissue and the further work on understanding the mode of action wound therapies currently available. In addition, the development of a new model to measure the effect of materials to handle bacteria and a research grant jointly with Dr David Thomas from the wound healing group, at the Dental School in Cardiff, to look at molecular microbiology, ensures that this group is actively involved on a number of interesting fronts.

Physical Measurement Group

This work in collaboration with Professor Bob Williams from the School of Electronic Engineering and IT, at the University of Glamorgan, continues to look at sub-bandage pressure, interface pressure, measurement of blood flow, measurement of temperature changes and in collaboration with Dr Dick Harding, Consultant Radiologist in Newport we are now looking at the potential for infra red imaging to determine early changes of osteomyelitis in patients with diabetic foot ulcers.

Outcomes Research

This work, headed by Dr Patricia Price who has developed the Cardiff Wound Impact Schedule, a disease specific Quality of Life tool that has now been validated in patients with venous leg ulceration and diabetic foot ulceration. It provides us to with discriminatory tool that can measure the patients’ quality of life and its impact on healing. Work with Professor John Posnett, University of York and Dr Ceri Phillips at the University College, Swansea, has allowed us to look at models of cost effectiveness in treating patients with chronic wounds.

Educational Group

This group, headed by Vanessa Jones, has developed not only a Postgraduate Diploma in Tissue Repair, but is also offering a Masters Course in Tissue Repair for healthcare professionals from a wide variety of backgrounds. The Diploma Course has been licensed to the University of Uppsala, where the course is directed by Christina Lind-holm. In addition to this, we have developed a multi-disciplinary teaching course with Dr Gary Sibbald in the Faculty of Medicine, at the University of Toronto. The demand for education continues to expand with increasingly diverse groups of healthcare professionals requesting formal training and education in the subject of healing.

Clinical Group

The recognition that in providing a consultant led clinical service will lead to huge demand for patients to be seen as a necessitated development of a clinical service, not only at its hospital base, but also sees large numbers of outpatients and visits patients in nursing homes in the community. We continue to see a large number of patients with diabetic foot ulcers, leg ulcers of varying aetiologies and pressure ulcers. This, in addition to patients with surgical wounds that are complex for a variety of reasons, does provide us with a large base of clinical material that we can investigate in a variety of ways to better understand abnormalities of healing in these various clinical conditions.

The Wound Healing Research Unit continues to remain self-funded within the College of Medicine, but we feel that we have now established ourselves within one of the mainstream medical schools in the UK and wound healing is no longer considered as something of sufficient merit to be considered in a UK University and College of Medicine. The considerable challenges remain to further establish credentials and provide a strong scientific base for this fascinating, complex and frustrating clinical and academic challenge.