Evaluation of Vacuum-assisted Closure in Skin Graft integration in Wounds

Background: Patients with burns and unclosable traumatic or iatrogenic defects frequently undergo reconstructive surgery utilizing skin grafts.Aim and objective: To assess the efficacy of STSG, both with and without VAC, in terms of graft take, healing length, time in hospital, and rate of complications.Patients and methods: This prospective study was performed on 20 patients of raw area post-deep burn for STSG in the burn unit of the plastic surgery department at Al-Hussein and Bab Elsheria University Hospitals, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University (Cairo). And burn unit of the plastic surgery department of Om-Elmasryeen General Hospital.Results: Statistically insignificant variance was observed (p-value greater than 0.05) within the groups under investigation (group A and group B) with respect to complications. There were no complications recorded in group A, while there was one patient (10%) with wound infection and one case (10%) with graft loss in group B. When comparing groups A and B, group B exhibited a significantly longer healing duration (p-value < 0.001).Conclusion: Negative pressure wound therapy exhibits considerable potential as an effective option for wound management and for enhancing the efficacy of split-thickness skin grafting operations through lower healing duration and better graft take. However, no statistically significant difference regarding complications was detected.