Dear Editor:

       Once again, we would like to thank Dr. Andersen and Mr. Dolmer for their continuing interest and clarification. To aid the discussion, we have repeated fluid absorption measurements on Contreet® Foam (Coloplast, Humlebaek, Denmark) under the conditions that they recommended. All components were preconditioning for 30 minutes at 37°C prior to the addition of an excess of test fluid (solution A). After 30 minutes contact time, the unabsorbed fluid was removed without disturbing the test dressing and before releasing the applied pressure (40 mmHg). The only other deviation from EN 13276–1:2002 (3.2) was that only 4 5 cm x 5 cm pieces of dressing were tested rather than 10 10 cm x 10 cm dressings as recommended. As anticipated, the observed absorption was very similar to, if not slightly lower than, that reported in the original article (27.8 g/100 cm² versus 32.9 g/100 cm²). This confirms that the absorption under pressure of this particular foam is not significantly different in tests with a 20-second or a 30-minute fluid exposure time. Therefore, we stand by the data and conclusions in the original article. As details of the correspondents’ work are unpublished, we cannot comment on why their results do not agree with our findings.

David Parsons, PhD
Philip G. Bowler, MPhil
Vivienne Myles, MSc
Samantha Jones, BSc
ConvaTec Wound Therapeutics™ Global
Development Centre
Deeside, Flintshire, United Kingdom