A brief search of the worlds wound care literature using a popular database such as PubMed will yield many hits (on 1st September I had 109,809 for ‘wound care’) but by refining the strategy by adding ‘paediatric’ reduces the number dramatically (down to 3,391). What does this tell us? Perhaps it reflects a considerably smaller clinical niche, or less research, or indeed, a greater difficulty in conducting research. All three reasons will apply to a degree. By adding ‘audit’ to both search strategies, the numbers are reduced even further. In the case of paediatric wounds, only very few hits, and these confined to burns and other trauma.
