Abstract: Wound measurement is essential in assessing the progress of wound healing. The most commonly used tools include wound tracings, width and length measurements, and digital photography. These methods have been useful in clinical practice but have some limitations, such as lack of accuracy, difficulty of use, and often entail wound contact. More advanced equipment tends to be bulky, heavy, and expensive. The following reviews the authors’ experience with a new wound measurement and documentation system, the ARANZ Medical Silhouette Mobile™ (ARANZ Medical, Christchurch, New Zealand). This innovative device combines a digital camera and structured lighting in the form of 2 laser beams to automatically correct for image scale and skin curvature, allowing rapid and accurate measurements of the wound surface area and depth. The scanner unit plugs into a standard personal digital assistant to form a portable device that can be easily held and operated using 1 hand. The scanner has been used in clinical practice trials in patients with venous leg ulcers, diabetic foot ulcers, and in the community setting. The scanner was found to be accurate and reliable, easy to learn and use, portable, and compact. The results presented suggest that this device may be a viable choice in the management of different types of chronic wounds.

     Accurate and reliable wound measurement is an essential component of wound assessment within clinical practice. Such measurement provides objective data that assists in establishing wound healing progress, alerts the clinician to evidence of deterioration, enhances communication between healthcare providers as well as healthcare providers and patients, aids in the selection of advanced treatment modalities and provides a concise account of the patient’s progress.¹ There is also an increasing demand for practitioners to validate their interventions, thus providing robust rationale to support their practice. Emerging technologies, such as more portable devices with dedicated software are providing healthcare professionals with new tools to support their practice by improving the efficacy of wound measurement and documentation.² Assessment of any wound should begin with the determination of the extent of the area involved. Repeated systematic assessment is required because the extent of a wound is a dynamic process. The total wound extent is based on the wound dimensions and the tissue level involved. The clinical evaluation of the extent of tissue involvement due to a skin lesion and the way a lesion evolves over time are often assessed according to the common sense and memory of the clinician. Evaluations are in general performed based on clinical experience using basic, low-tech equipment to make objective measurements. The determination of the extent of a wound may also be accomplished by noninvasive and invasive technologies. Noninvasive wound assessment includes the measurement of perimeter, maximum dimensions of length and width, surface area, volume, and determination of tissue viability.³

     The following introduces the ARANZ Medical Silhouette™ Product Suite (ARANZ Medical, Christchurch, New Zealand), provides preliminary repeatability information for measurements made by the system, and discusses clinical application of the system in different clinical settings.

     Hand-held mobile device.The ARANZ Medical SilhouetteMobile™ is a secure electronic, hand-held, noncontact wound measurement and documentation device that is used to accurately measure both wound surface area and depth.^4–6 The device consists of a scanner head that attaches to a standard Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). The scanner comprises a digital camera used to capture an image of the wound and structured lighting that includes 2 fan laser beams.