Superficial Burn Wound Healing with Intermittent Negative Pressure Wound Therapy Under Limited Access and Conventional Dressings.

Background: Thermal injury is associated with several biochemical and histopathological alteration in tissue. Analysis of these objective parameters in research and clinical field are common to determine healing rate of burn wound. Negative pressure wound therapy has been achieved wide success in treating chronic wounds. This study determines superficial burn wound healing with intermittent negative pressure wound therapy under limited access and conventional dressings.

Methods: A total 50 patients were randomised into two equal groups: limited access and conventional dressing groups. Selective biochemical parameters such as hydroxyproline, hexosamine, total protein, and antioxidants, malondialdhyde (MDA), wound surface pH, matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2), and nitric oxide (NO) were measured in the granulation tissue. Histopathologically, necrotic tissue, amount of inflammatory infiltrate, angiogenesis and extracellular matrix deposition (ECM) were studied to determine wound healing under intermittent negative pressure.

Results: Patients treated with limited access have shown significant increase in the mean hydroxyproline, hexosamine, total protein, reduced glutathione (GSH), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and decrease in MDA, MMP-2, wound surface pH, and NO. Histopathologic study showed that there was a significant difference after 10 days of treatment between limited access vs conventional dressing group, Median (Q, Q)=3 (2, 4.25) vs 2 (1.75, 4).

Conclusion: Limited access was shown to exert its beneficial effects on wound healing by increasing ground substance, antioxidants and reducing MMP-2 activity, MDA, NO and providing optimal pH, decreasing necrotic tissue, amount of inflammatory infiltrate, increasing ECM deposition and angiogenesis.