The importance of periwound skin in the treatment of "difficult wound"

A "difficult wound" consists of a loosing of cutaneous substance, with multi factor pathogenesis, that doesn't heal spontaneously. The treatment of this pathology is quite complex and first of all requires the analysis of the aetiopathogenesis of the wound, as it can healed only operating on its causes. Cutaneous wounds are formed by three different parts: bottom, border-edge and periwound skin, that must be analysed before every dressing, without overlooking all their components. Periwound skin is the part of skin that stretches for 10 centimetres beyond the wound edge. Our work aims to describe the importance of periwound skin in wound healing process, analysing clinical variants and specific treatment. Studying periwound skin we can provide many information in order to understand the cause of the lesion, to foresee healing time and to chance and find the most proper dressing, optimizing resources consumption.