An Alternative Treatment Strategy for Complicated Chronic Wounds: Negative Pressure Therapy over Mesh Skin Graft

Abstract

Extensive skin defect represents a real problem and major challenge in plastic and reconstructive surgery. On one hand, skin grafts offer a practical method to deal with skin defects despite their unsuitability for several complicated wounds. On the other hand, negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT), applied before skin grafting, promotes granulation tissue growth. The aim of the study is to evaluate the improvement in wound healing given by the merger of these two different approaches. We treated 23 patients for large wounds of multiple factors. Of these, 15 were treated with the application of V.A.C.® Therapy (KCI Medical S.r.l., Milan, Italy), in combination with skin grafts after a prior unsuccessful treatment of 4 weeks with mesh skin grafts and dressings. Another 8 were treated with only mesh skin graft. Pain reduction and wound area reduction were found statistically significant (<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M1"><mml:mi>p</mml:mi><mml:mo>&lt;</mml:mo><mml:mn fontstyle="italic">0.0009</mml:mn></mml:math>,<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M2"><mml:mi>p</mml:mi><mml:mo>&lt;</mml:mo><mml:mn fontstyle="italic">0.0001</mml:mn></mml:math>). Infection was resolved in almost all patients. According to our study, the use of the negative pressure wound therapy over mesh skin grafts is significantly effective especially in wounds resistant to conventional therapies, thereby improving the rate of skin graft take.