Antimicrobial or Antiseptic Cleansers for Wounds

Key Messages

• For chronic wound care, the majority of evidence suggested that antiseptic agents do not add additional clinical benefits compared with saline. No differences were observed between antiseptics and saline in the incidence of adverse events.
• For surgical wound care, irrigation with antibiotic agents is likely associated with lower rates of surgical site infections compared with saline irrigation. Depending on the type of antiseptic agent, type of surgery, and depth of infection, antiseptic irrigation may have superior or similar efficacy compared with saline in surgical site infection and wound healing rates. Indirect evidence suggested antibiotics were not superior to antiseptics for prevention of surgical site infections. No differences were observed between antiseptic irrigation and saline irrigation in the incidence of adverse events and length of hospital stay.
• For acute traumatic wound care, a limited number of studies provided mixed results on the effectiveness of povidone-iodine compared with saline for preventing infection. The effect of antiseptic agents on bacterial load was unclear. No robust conclusions could be drawn due to very low certainty of the evidence.
• The economic evaluation study showed that irrigation with hypochlorous acid preserved wound cleanser was a cost-effective strategy in the short term compared with saline for the treatment of severely complex wounds during ultrasonic debridement. However, we have little confidence in the findings due to several limitations in the methods of the study.
• We did not identify any studies that compared the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of antimicrobial or antiseptic wound cleansers with antimicrobial dressings or of different types of antimicrobial or antiseptic wound cleansers for the management of wounds.
• We did not identify any evidence-based guidelines regarding the use of antimicrobial or antiseptic wound cleansers for the management of wounds.