Efficacy of Portable Vacuum Dressing in Chronic Wound Care: A Prospective Randomized Control Trial
Chatchai Pruksapong MD*
Affiliation : *Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Phramongkutklao Army Hospital, Bangkok, Thailand
Background : Chronic wound is a common clinical condition and often cause treatment problems. This is because chronic
wound usually require extended treatment period, which result in high hospital cost. The treatment of chronic wound depends
on the type of wound, the cause of wound, and the physical status of patient. Vacuum dressing has become a standard
treatment of chronic wound. However, in most hospitals, vacuum dressing is only used for in-patients thus, keeping the
patients in hospital for this treatment. The problems with this are the long hospital stay, the high cost, and the unavailability
of bed for other patients. This problem led us to develop a new treatment to help chronic wound patient. The potential solution
was the use of a portable vacuum machine for out-patient. If the efficacy of the portable vacuum machine was comparable to
the wall vacuum then the benefit could be transferred to out-patient.
Material and Method: A Randomized control trial of two groups of patients, conventional vacuum dressing (n = 15) and
portable vacuum dressing (n = 15), was done. Rate of wound healing was measured every three days and compared to
represent efficacy between the two groups of patients.
Results : Thirty chronic wound patients were assigned randomly to a group of 15 for treatment with conventional wall vacuum
dressing and another group of 15 for treatment with our portable vacuum dressing. Demographic data was similar in both
groups (sex, age and underlying cause). Wound area was recorded at the start of the treatment on day 0 and recorded at day
3, 6, 9 and 12. It was then calculated into percentage of wound healing. Rate of wound healing was 1.57%/day in conventional
group and 1.59%/day in portable group. There is no clinical difference between groups (p > 0.05).
Conclusion : Our portable vacuum dressing method had no clinical difference from conventional wall vacuum dressing with
respect to the rate of wound healing.
Keywords : Portable vacuum, Chronic wound, Randomized control trial
