Comparison of vacuum sealing drainage and traditional pressure dressing in the treatment of large area skin avulsion injury

Objective To investigate the effect of vacuum sealing drainage (VSD) technology for the treatment of large area of skin avulsion injury. Methods In this retrospective study, 62 patients with large area skin avulsion injury were treated by in situ full-sickness skin graft replantation method in our hospital from March 2007 to August 2010. Among them, 27 patients were used with traditional pressure dressing (control group), and 35 patients with VSD (VSD group). Postoperative skin graft survival condition, wound surface infection and average hospital stay were recorded. Results In VSD group, the full-thickness skin graft survived completely in 31 cases (88.6%) while the skin survival area was higher than 95% in the other 4 cases, and there were 2 cases presented wound surface infection (infection rate was 5.7%). In control group, the full-thickness skin graft of 18 cases presents survived completely (66.7%) while the skin survival area was higher than 75% in the other 9 cases, and there were 6 cases presented wound surface infection (infection rate was 21.4%). Between two groups, there were statistical differences of skin graft survival rate and wound infection rate (P0.05), also, the average hospital stay in VSD group was shorter than that in control group [(12.3 ± 5.4) d vs (19.7 ± 8.3) d, P 0.05]. After dressing change or the second skin grafting, all patients' wound surfaces healed completely. Conclusions Compared with traditional pressure dressing technique, VSD technique has the advantage of improving thesurvival rate of full-thickness skin graft, reducing infection rate and shortening average stay. As a result, VSD is a comparable good method for the treatment of large area skin avulsion injury.