Dr. Kunimitsu and her collaborators investigated the relationship between wound healing status and the microbial similarity between the wound bed and the peri-wound skin, aiming to establish a new preventive intervention for critical colonization—a subclinical infection in pressure injuries. Their findings revealed that microbial similarity was low in hard-to-heal pressure injuries. This suggests that a dysbiotic wound microbiota, deviating from the commensal skin microbiota, is likely associated with critical colonization. Therefore, preventing critical colonization may require a paradigm shift from conventional strategies focused on bacterial removal to novel approaches that optimize and utilize the wound microbiota.
