
Living with necrotic tissue is challenging for patients and requires evidence-based treatments from skilled wound care clinicians to achieve improved patient outcomes. Let’s explore what it is, how to spot it, and where to go from there.
What Is Necrotic Tissue?
First, what is necrotic tissue and necrosis? The term necrosis stems from the Greek work nekros, which means death.
“Necrosis is a loose term, and it can appear in two ways – under a microscope and grossly viewed with the naked eye,” said Brian Gastman, MD, Surgical Director of Melanoma and High-Risk Skin Cancer Program at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland and Professor in the Department of Surgery at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland.
When tissue is necrotic, there is a loss of tissue integrity, he said. “The tissue becomes discolored, there is fluid and exudative material present, and it becomes fodder for bacterial colonization.”