Surgical Sponges: Surgical sponges are highly versatile with many medical uses. Primarily, these sterile sponges serve vital purposes during surgical procedures, including protection, homeostasis, wound management, retraction, and blunt dissection. For example, after making an incision, a surgeon or surgical team members use a dry or moist sponge to apply pressure to the blood vessel to absorb excess blood and encourage coagulation. They also use surgical sponges to maintain critical visibility and to keep essential organs in place by using the sponges to fill in spaces within the body cavity.
Non-Woven Sponges: Unlike 100% cotton-woven gauze sponges, non-woven gauze sponges have a coarse poly rayon blend designed for cleaning, packing, and debriding (removing infected, damaged, or dead tissue). In addition, the high absorbent poly rayon blend causes non-woven sponges to be less linting and more usable for dialysis, dermatology, and plastic surgery.
Gauze Sponges: Gauze sponges come in various forms, such as woven, non-woven, sterile, unsterile, cotton, and poly rayon. For medical purposes, gauze sponges make ideal tools for cleaning wounds, administering medicine, wound draining, surgical prep, and packing. Essentially, gauze sponges are the basis for all other forms of medical sponges.
IV Sponges: Pre-cut and sterile IV sponges adsorb draining fluids around feeding tubes, tracheostomy tubes, catheters, and IV sites. They have a lint-free cotton composition that conforms well around any surgically insertable tube. Plus, IV sponges are moisture vapor permeable, compatible with topical ointments, and removable in one piece.
Wound Drain Sponges: Generally made of cotton, you can use wound drain sponges to absorb excess fluid from wounds or areas of the body with waste fluid. Eight to twelve ply drain sponges are more absorbent than sponges with lower ply. These sponges are handy around tracheostomy sites.
