What is the difference between purulent and suppurative drainage?

[gigishelby]

What is the difference between purulent and suppurative drainage?

[AgentBeast, BSN, RN]

There is no difference.

[caliotter3]

Not knowing any official difference, I think of purulent as "stinky" and suppurative as "oozing".

[gigishelby]

Thanks!

[CWONgal]

I've never used the word suppurative in my documentation as a wound care nurse. Hydadrinitis suppurativa is the only place I've really seen the term used in all the notes I've ever read too from nurses and providers combined. I use the term purulent to describe the type of exudate whereas suppurative is a term I would use to describe the active process of oozing or expressing exudate. In my notes I just say, "Palpated wound periphery and expressed purulent exudate".