Slough was a visible indicator of biofilm, which was the most available specimen from acute and chronic wounds. However, studies believed that slough were poorly accurate, and that the Levine swab was more recommended for sampling bacterial culture. This study aimed to compare slough with swab sample and analyze the consistency.

Inclusion Criteria:

1. Patients with acute and chronic wounds who were first seen at the Wound Care Centre of Peking University Third Hospital from October 2022 to October 2023;
2. Patients who have followed the wound sample collection SOP to simultaneously take wound swabs and putrefactive samples and send them for bacterial culture;;
3. Patients aged 18 years or older;

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Patients who had been taken only one of the wound samples, either swab or slough;
2. The swab collection did not meet the deifinitions for the exudate method or the Levine technique；
3. Bacterial culture profile was incomplete didn't meet the requirement of the trial.

This was a single-center, retrospective, cross-sectional study, including 131 patients with acute or chronic wounds treated in Wound Healing Center of Peking University Third Hospital from October 2022 to October 2023