Section 6-1: Surgical swabs

Although there is now a general move away from routine mechanical cleansing of the surface of a wound, there are occasions when it is necessary to remove residues of slough or other debris from the wound or surrounding skin. The most commonly used materials for this purpose are cellulose swabs These are products which, although not designed to be left in intimate contact with damaged tissue, may be used for cleansing purposes or as secondary absorbent layers over a primary dressing in the management of heavily exuding wounds. Surgical swabs are traditionally produced from Gauze, a simple woven fabric made from absorbent cotton but developments in textile technology have led to the production of nonwoven fabrics manufactured principally from viscose which have a number of advantages over woven cotton. Specifically, they are generally more absorbent and are less likely to shed fibrous material into the wound which may delay healing or predispose the wound to infection. They are also significantly cheaper. Filmated swab contains a thin layer of absorbent cotton (cotton wool) which is included to improve the fluid handling properties, although the presence of the loose cotton fibres must increase the risk of particulate loss from the finished product. Filmated swabs may be manufactured from either woven or nonwoven fabric but laboratory tests have shown that despite the presence of the fibrous cotton interliner, the filmated swabs available upon prescription are inferior in performance terms to the ordinary nonwoven product despite being significantly more expensive