Predicting the short-term healing progress of
pressure ulcers is important for providing timely and appropriate intervention. Although there are some prediction methods available, these are unsuitable for
ulcers with abundant necrotic tissue. We aimed to elucidate the relationship between necrotic tissue alteration and
protein distributions on
ulcers to establish a new prediction method. Thirty-eight
pressure ulcers were retrospectively analyzed.
Protein distributions on necrotic tissue were evaluated by the
wound blotting at three levels: marker
protein positivity, signal patterns (speckled, heterogeneous, or homogeneous), and the occupation of heterogeneous pattern.
Peroxidase,
alkaline phosphatase,
tumor necrosis factor α, and
matrix metalloproteinase-2 were used as marker
proteins. One-week necrotic tissue alteration was classified as liquefaction or nonliquefaction, and associations with
protein distributions were analyzed. The
peroxidase positivity was significantly higher in the liquefaction than in the nonliquefaction (p = 0.031). In
peroxidase-positive samples, the proportion of nonliquefaction samples was significantly higher in the heterogeneous pattern (p = 0.029). In the heterogeneous-patterned samples, the proportion of samples with an occupation values greater than the median value tended to be higher in the nonliquefaction (p = 0.087). There was no significant relationship between liquefaction and other markers.
Peroxidase positivity predicts 1-week liquefaction of necrotic tissue, while a heterogeneous pattern indicates nonliquefaction.