Literature Review Are Wound Vacuum Devices Healing Wounds Essay

Literature Review Are Wound Vacuum Devices Healing Wounds - Essay Example VAC was even compared with the traditional WM dressing method and proved to heal better. This only proves that VAC is indeed a promising and faster way to heal wounds. The main purpose of this research is to look through the new way of wound healing. In the United States, over 2.8 million patients have chronic wounds and treatments cost billions of dollars per year. Wound healing is a complex process which starts with removal of debris, control of infection, clearance of inflammation, angiogenesis, deposition of granulation tissue, contraction, remodeling of the connective tissue matrix and maturation. This sequence of events should be undergone by the wound for proper healing whilst if it fails to undergo these events, a chronic open wound without anatomical or functional integrity results (Joseph, 2008). Chronic wounds should be healed at a faster rate in order to decrease hospitalization days and thereby reduce costs. A product which delivers improved healing process could help in decreasing infection, amputation and length of hospital stay thus entails potential annual savings for healthcare cost. The introduction of vacuum-assisted closure (VAC) which utilizes subatmospheric technique may be the answer in this medical challenge. In VAC, placing an open-cell foam dressing is involved. It is placed into the wound cavity and controlled subatmospheric pressure is applied. The technique was observed to remove chronic edema which increases local blood flow and enhanced formation of granulation tissue (Joseph, 2008). VAC applies negative pressure to wounds hence fluid is removed and growth of granulation tissue is stimulated. Acute, subacute and chronic wounds may be applied with VAC. Argenta, et al. have previously described the use of the VAC device to enhance healing and promote closure of a variety of open wounds FDA cleared VAC for clinical use. Frequent dressing changes which required when using WM, could be lessen by using VAC which requires dressing changes only every 48 hours (Joseph, 2008). Review of the Literature Senchenkov et al. (2007) conducted a study on the use of vacuum assisted closure (VAC) dressing for irradiated wounds. This study aimed to examine the outcomes of split-thickness skin grafts (STSG) secured by VAC during the early part of the postoperative period. Reviews were done on the records of 17 preoperatively radiated patients with extremity sarcomas that was reconstructed with STSGs combined with VAC to assess the efficiency of VAC in this purpose. Through January 1997 and December 2005, there have been 19 patients identified to base on their records to have undergone STSG reconstruction of irradiated extremity defects with VAC. These patients had soft tissue sarcomas. External beam radiation was used to treat the tumor bed and added with intraoperative radiation or brachytherapy. This was done before skin was grafted. Two of these patients however were excluded in the study because one had necrosis of the underlying irradiate muscle flaps while the other had 40% skin graft placed with epidermis which faced the recipients bed. This left 17 patients (9 men and 8 women, age 42 to 82, mean 65) to be