Abstract

Background: Conventional dressing of choice is a cotton bolster or sterile compressive dressing that is used for at least five days. The negative pressure wound therapy using reticulated open cell foam dressing conforms to the wound geometry by addition of negative pressure and promotes skin graft adherence while removing exudates and oedema from surrounding tissues. Methodology: An observational comparative study was conducted in our department from November 2016 to may 2018. A total of 60 patients were included and the subjects were divided in 2 study groups Group-A i.e. standard dressing group and Group-B i.e. negative pressure wound therapy group of 30 patients each. Initially, during intra-operative period, size of the grafted area was measured in surface area using graph sheet method. Photographs were taken intra operatively and on post operative day 7, Percentage of graft take was measured on post operative day 7. Besides these some other variables were also compared. Result: In Group B, the mean area of grafted wound was 396.70 cm2 with standard deviation of 94.57 and the graft take on postoperative day 7 was 391.83 cm2 with standard deviation of 93.23 showing the statistically significant difference when compared group A. None of the patients in Group B had shown any evidence of haematoma/seroma. Mean numbers of days of hospital stay were less in Group B. Conclusion: Negative pressure wound therapy is effective in improving the percentage of split thickness graft take.

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