ABSTRACT
A high risk of infection is also reported for chronic wounds, an issue predominantly affecting immune-suppressed people. As a consequence of manifestation of wound infection, wounds fail to heal. This greatly complicates the treatment modalities and life of the patients. The infection progress strongly correlates with the interaction of invading bacteria with the wound environment. This process is divided into four sections, namely, contamination, colonization, critical colonization and infection, whereby impaired wound healing is considered to start at the stage of critical bacterial colonization. This chapter discusses the promising methods available for microbial infection detection divided in direct bacterial detection and indirect infection detection. It describes the advantages and disadvantages of the available detection systems are elucidated and future perspectives in early detection of bacterial wound infection. The need of point-of-care (PoC) diagnostics for infection detection drives research to innovation in online measurement tools that provide fast information on the infection status.
