Cuts and abrasions are a part of growing up. Most don't require any treatment beyond cleansing, first aid and some TLC.
Washing out the wound with copious amounts of water is the best way to clean out dirt, grime, and bacteria. In the emergency department, wounds and cuts are usually irrigated with sterile normal saline - a water solution that is guaranteed not to have any germs in it and has the salt content and acidity of blood.
Why is normal saline used to irrigate wounds? Doctors will tell you because it's sterile and, because of this, won't introduce any bacteria into the wound.
The wound irrigation is usually done by filling large syringes with normal saline and squirting it into the wound. This process is time consuming. It's also hard to provide the forceful continuous irrigation needed to dislodge the dirt and grime in the cut or abrasion.
An alternate way to irrigate wounds is with tap water. It has many advantages over normal saline - it's easier to get a continuous high pressure stream of water, many children find it less scary than using a syringe, it's much cheaper, and anyone can do it.
There are two concerns about using tap water: does tap water irrigation do as good a job of cleaning wounds as irrigation with normal saline and does tap water irrigation introduces any bacteria into the wound?
Tap water is generally free of bacteria, especially those that may cause infection in a wound. In a study of over 500 children with lacerations, the half who had their wounds irrigated with tap water had no more infections that those whose wounds were irrigated with normal saline.
The children found the tap water irrigation less upsetting. The doctors found it easier to do. And it was definitely cheaper than using normal saline.
Annals of Emergency Medicine, 05/03
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