Vacuum-assisted closure in secondary wound healing after pilonidal sinus surgery.

Objective: This study evaluated the utility of vacuum-assisted closure (VAC) in comparison to standard open wound care in patients operated for pilonidal sinus disease (PSD).

Method: Patients with PSD who underwent standard pilonidal sinus excision-lay open technique/surgery in the Altınbas University School of Medicine Bahcelievler Medical Park Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey, between May 2015 and May 2018, were included in this study. A retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data was performed. The patients were divided into two groups according to the type of wound care, including the vacuum-assisted closure group (n=30, postoperative vacuum-assisted closure application) and the control group (n=30, standard open wound care). Wound size, postoperative infection rates and wound healing times were compared between study groups.

Results: The experimental cohort included 60 patients. There was no statistically significant difference between vacuum-assisted closure and the control groups in terms of preoperative and postoperative infection rates (p>0.05). The total recovery time (time to complete wound healing) was significantly shorter in the vacuum-assisted closure group compared with the control group (21.47±4.38 days versus 67.60±7.83 days, p=0.001).

Conclusion: The findings of this study emphasise that the use of vacuum-assisted closure in PSD patients treated with the lay-open technique seems notable in terms of its potential to shorten the otherwise longer secondary recovery time and thus enables the consideration of the lay-open technique once again among the most preferable methods. However, there is a need for larger scale prospective studies addressing the utility of vacuum-assisted closure in patients with PSD to validate these findings.