Investigation of the applicability of a sampling method of wound exudate using swabs for the amino acid analysis

Abstract

　This study was conducted to investigate the applicability of a noninvasive, simple sampling method for wound exudates by using swabs for amino acid analysis. A full-thickness wound was created in two rats: one rat was treated with silver sulfadiazine cream and an occlusive wound dressing from Day 1 post-wounding whereas the other rat was treated with only an occlusive wound dressing. Swabs were collected daily, before and after wound cleansing, until Day 4 postwounding. Sixteen amino acids in the wound exudate were measured using high-performance liquid chromatography. The relative abundance of amino acids, which is the ratio of each amino acid to the total amino acid content, was used in the analysis. As a results, under the same wound conditions, there was a positive correlation in the relative abundance of amino acids between pre- and post-cleansing samples (p> 0.90, p< 0.01). The relative abundance of amino acids varied between the post-cleansing- and pre-cleansing samples the next day, and the inter-sample differences depended on the intervention. Therefore, this method may be able to detect changes in the relative abundance of amino acids in wound exudates and be used to assess the wound condition.