Negative pressure wound therapy in complex cranio ‐maxillofacial and cervical wounds

Abstract The care and the management of the healing of difficult wounds at the level of the skull‐facial face many problems related to patient compliance and the need to perform multiple dressings, with long periods of healing and, occasionally, a very long hospitalisation period. The introduction and evolution of negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) in the treatment of difficult wounds has resulted in better healing, with a drastic reduction in terms of time and biological costs to the patient and cost to the health care system. The main aim of this study is to describe and discuss, using out our experience, the usefulness of NPWT in the cranial‐facial‐cervical region. We studied 16 patients with complex wounds of the cranial‐facial‐cervical region treated with NPWT. We divided clinical cases in four groups: cervicofacial infectious disease, healing complications in oncological‐reconstructive surgery, healing complications of injury with exposure of bone and/or internal fixations and healing complications in traumatic injury with loss of substance. We evaluated complete or incomplete wound healing; application time, related also to hospitalisation time; days of intensive care unit (ICU) stay; management of the upper airways; timing of medication renewal; and patient comfort and compliance (on a scale of 1–5). Depression values were always between −75 and −125 mmHg in a continuous aspiration pattern. For every patient, we used the ActiVAC Therapy Unit, der...
Source: International Wound Journal - Category: Surgery Authors: Tags: ORIGINAL ARTICLE Source Type: research