An elderly man attended Austin and Repatriation Medical Centre in Melbourne seeking treatment for a leg ulcer that had not healed for 52 years.

Mr Geoff Sussman: for fast healing, a wound should be kept moist.

After searching unsuccessfully all that time for a cure and - according to treating specialists - costing the Australian community an estimated $350,000, he was healed in 10 weeks for about $200.

No miracle operations were performed or bioengineered skin products used, just modern wound management principles applied by the director of Monash University's Wound Education Research Centre, Mr Geoff Sussman.

Mr Sussman, who has spent 25 years researching wound management in both the human and animal worlds, bases his approach on 1962 research which proved that a moist environment increases the rate of wound healing by 50 per cent.

Part of his work involves regular wound consultation at Victorian zoos, where patients range from elephants and quolls to badgers and limas.

Mr Sussman treats a nagging injury on the foot of Malaysian elephant Bong Su.

Mr Sussman says the 1962 research is contrary to the long-held view of health professionals and the public that the best treatment is to keep a wound clean and dry.

But with the world's increasing scientific interest in tissue growth and cell research, he says, that attitude is changing.

"It has to do with theories that are now better understood. For example, with an incisional wound, although the top layer of skin has healed, the wound in fact hasn't, and it will take anywhere between three and 12 months for ultimate tensile tissue strength to be achieved."

Mr Sussman uses a technique aimed at trying to reduce tension on the wound.

"When the stitches come out, I replace them every centimetre with Steri-strips and over the top I put a polyurethane film dressing which is quite elastic, waterproof and breathes like skin," he explains. "I change the dressing every 10 days and keep doing that for five months. Instead of the wound trying to be forced open, which spreads the scar and makes it wider, it's all held together."

This lizard is one of Mr Sussman's many patients at the Melbourne Zoo.

Mr Sussman's technique involves a multidisciplinary approach by everyone involved in patient treatment to ensure that all factors influencing healing are addressed - the underlying cause of the wound, lifestyle, diet, potentially adverse medication, appropriate dressing and maintenance.

"We need to treat the whole patient, not just the hole in the patient," he says. "And once we've healed the wound, especially in a patient with a chronic problem, we have to look at lifestyle changes to prevent a recurrence."

		For more information about the wound healing techniques used at Monash's Wound Education Research Centre, contact Mr Geoff Sussman, email geoff.sussman@vcp.monash.edu.au or call +61 3 9903 9619.