Increased Cost of Negative Pressure Dressings Is Not Justified for Split-Thickness Skin Grafting of Low-Risk Wounds.

Objectives: (1) To determine whether negative pressure dressings (NPDs) are superior to conventional compressive dressings (CDs) for split-thickness skin grafts (STSGs) placed on healthy, low-risk wounds, (2) To determine the cost difference of NPDs versus that of CDs.

Design: Retrospective.

Setting: Level I Trauma Center.

Patients/participants: One hundred ninety-five traumatic wounds treated with STSG.

Main Outcome Measurements: Patients were assigned outcomes based on postoperative documentation: completely healed, incompletely healed (small areas of graft necrosis), failed, or lost to follow-up. The costs associated with each dressing type were documented.

Results: Thirty five of 195 STSGs were lost to follow-up, leaving n = 120 STSG-NPD, n = 40 STSG-CD. Of the remaining 120 STSGs treated with NPD, 91 completely healed, 23 incompletely healed, and 6 failed. Of the 40 STSGs treated with a CD, 37 completely healed, 1 incompletely healed, and 2 failed. Patients treated with CDs had a higher likelihood of healing relative to those treated with the NPD (P = 0.018). Analyzing the outcomes as failed versus "not failed" revealed no significant difference between the groups (P = 1.00). There were more smokers in the CD group (P = 0.022). In this series, the mean cost associated with NPD compared with that of CD was $2370 more per patient.

Conclusions: There is a high rate of successful healing of STSGs for traumatic extremity wounds regardless of the dressing used. The increased cost of NPDs is not justified in wounds that are at a low risk of developing STSG failure.

Level Of Evidence: Therapeutic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.