Recently, the team of Professor Cai Fuman of the School of Nursing of Wenzhou Medical University published a paper entitled "Application of an infrared thermography-based model to detect pressure injuries: a prospective cohort study" online in the British Journal of Dermatology (BJD), a top-ranked international dermatology journal. The study has found a new method for the intelligent early detection of pressure ulcers in hospitalized patients and patients at home.

Pressure ulcers, also known as pressure injuries, are not only an important problem in clinical nursing but also a global health issue as the population ages. The key to the prevention and treatment of pressure ulcers lies in early warning and diagnosis. At present, the early warning and diagnosis of pressure ulcers are based on assessment scales and visual detection, which have shortcomings such as subjectivity and delay. In addition, those methods are hard to promote as they require professional expertise.

The research team followed up with 613 patients for a period of 10 days to compare the AI infrared thermography-based early detection model with traditional methods such as assessment scales and visual detection and found that the model is more convenient, objective, and accurate in early warning and diagnosis. The research results do not only serve as an important reference to the prevention and treatment of pressure injuries but also play a significant role in WMU’s building of a characteristic wound care discipline with international influence. The results have been authorized for a national invention patent, become commercialized, and put into production.

In the past three years, Professor Cai Fuman has led the team to focus on clinical application and translational research in this field. The team has obtained six national invention patents and published a number of high-quality papers in internationally and domestically top-ranked nursing journals such as Journal of Tissue Viability, Journal of Clinical Nursing, and Chinese Journal of Nursing.

The British Journal of Dermatology, starting its publication in 1951, is the official journal of the British Association of Dermatologists and one of the top three journals in the field of dermatology worldwide. The corresponding author of this paper is Professor Cai Fuman of the School of Nursing, and the co-first authors are Jiang Xiaoqiong, a young teacher of the School of Nursing, and Wang Yu from the First Affiliated Hospital of WMU. The study was supported by the Zhejiang Provincial Basic Public Welfare Project (LGF21H110001).

Article link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bjd.21665

Text translated by Yu Yena and reviewed by Sun You.