Fluorescent imaging technology (MolecuLight DX™) as tool to aid in the diagnosis and treatment of wounds in animals?

Background

Wounds are one of the most common problems affecting horses and often require veterinary care. Since only clean wounds can heal, it is important to clean the wound in a way that promotes the healing process. Effective and rapid wound healing contributes to improved animal welfare, reduced antibiotic use, and lower costs for the horse owner.

As part of an ongoing doctoral project, in addition to traditional wound irrigation, various methods for cleaning wounds are being studied, such as mechanical cleaning with a scalpel, coblation, and Versajet. To evaluate the effectiveness of different wound treatments, MolecuLight DX™ is used—a non-invasive, portable digital imaging technology that enables real-time assessment of bacterial load by visualizing the presence of bacteria in the wound. It is often difficult to determine both the extent and significance of different bacteria in wound infections in horses. Greater knowledge in this area provides a better basis for selecting the optimal treatment method and determining the extent of wound treatment. The use of MolecuLight DX™ in real time during wound debridement is expected to facilitate wound healing, as the technology can provide immediate guidance on which tissue should be removed and whether a sufficient amount of infected tissue has been removed.

However, since there are no published scientific articles describing the use of MolecuLight DX™ in connection with the treatment of wounds in either horses or other animals, we will also investigate the reliability of the method.

Project overview

The study is being conducted on patients at the University Animal Hospital (Equine Clinic), where both outpatients and inpatients will be included. At each examination, multiple images are captured using MolecuLight DX™, and all images are saved for later evaluation. Standardized bacteriological analyses are performed in parallel with the MolecuLight DX™ examination. Samples for these analyses are collected both before and after any surgical procedures. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses of bacterial presence will be performed. The detected bacteria are identified at the species level using MALDI-TOF MS, and bacterial counts are quantified through dilution series prior to culture on agar plates.

Objectives

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of fluorescent imaging technology (MolecuLight DX™) as an aid in the diagnosis and treatment of bacterial infections in equine wounds. Furthermore, the study aims to investigate any correlations between clinical assessment of wounds, results from fluorescent imaging, and bacterial load. The study also aims to increase knowledge about which bacterial species are most commonly found in both acute traumatic wounds and chronic, hard-to-heal wound infections. In addition, the goal is to gain an understanding of the extent of variation in bacterial load within different parts of a single wound. Finally, the ambition is to contribute to more optimized wound care, with the goal of improving animal welfare, reducing antibiotic use, and lowering costs for affected animals.