Vacuum-Assisted Closure (VAC) as a Dressing Method for Skin Graft in Burn Wound Management

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Skin graft is the gold standard surgical treatment in burn wound management. Until now, wet to dry dressing is regarded as the traditionally standard dressing for skin graft. But it needs to be changed daily, burdens the patients and medical caring team and is time consuming. The authors apply VAC to skin graft to secure the skin and compared the outcomes with previous standard dressing technique. METHODS: 38 burn patients who underwent skin graft were included in this study. Patients were selected with their consent for inclusion in an experimental group and a control group. Patients in the experimental group received a VAC appliance after split-thickness skin graft, while those in the control group received wet to dry dressing after the procedure. Time to complete epithelization, rates of skin graft taken areas, satisfaction of patients and medical caring team was evaluated. RESULTS: A shorter time to complete epithelization (12.5 days) was observed in the experimental group than in the control group (14.6 days), and a higher rates of skin graft taken areas (89%) was observed in the experimental group when compared with the control group (84.5%), A higher satisfaction of both the patients and doctors was observed in the experimental group, compared to the control group, with all statistical significance (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: VAC shortens epithelization period and elevate skin graft taken rates. It also makes the patients and doctors the comfortable in burn patients. The VAC is an excellent alternative for securing skin graft.