Abstract
Aim
There are no studies in literature that analyze the effectiveness of closed-incisional negative pressure wound therapy (ciNPWT) in the treatment of bone and joint infections (BJI). The aim of the study was to evaluate the efficacy and the safety of the application of ciNPWT in the postsurgical wound management of patients with osteoarticular infections.
Method
We conducted a perspective single-center study on patients with BJI treated between 01/2022 and 10/2022 with ciNPWT dressing application at the end of the surgical procedure. All patients were treated by a multidisciplinary team (MDT) approach and operated by the same surgical equipe. Inclusion criteria were: presence of periprosthetic joint infection (PJI), fracture-related infection (FRI), osteomyelitis (OM), septic arthritis (SA) surgically treated, after which ciNPTW was applied over the closed surgical wound. 30 patients (19M, 11F) have been analyzed with mean age of 56,10±17,11 years old; BJIs were all localized in the lower limb (16 PJI, 12 FRI, 1 SA, 1 OM).
Results
We considered the following clinical local pre-operative parameters: presence of fistula (10 patients, 33,33%), presence of erythema (18 patients, 60%), presence of previous flap in the incisional site (7 patients, 23,33%). In 11 cases (36,67%) more than 3 previous surgical procedures were performed in the surgical site. The following surgical procedures were performed: 8 debridement and implants removal, 7 DAIR, 3 one-stage exchange, 6 two-stage exchange, 3 spacer exchange, 3 resection arthroplasty. Nineteen patients (63,34%) showed no occurrence of any local post-operative complication (erythema, hematoma, wound breakdown, wound blister, necrosis). Seven (23,33%) patients showed the presence of one or more postoperative complications that didn't require additional surgery. We observed four (13,33%) failures, defined as the need for further surgical procedures following the onset of a local complication: two patients had a wound breakdown before wound closure and two had a recurrence of infection after an uneventfully wound closure. All failures were within the group of joint infection (PJI+SA) and were affected by a multi drug resistant pathogen.
Conclusions
In our series four patients required further surgery, but only two cases were related to incisional wound problems, that is consistent with aseptic joint revision surgeries data that are available in literature (3.4%-6.9%)[1-2]. Patients affected by BJI are a group with significant high risk of failure and therefore the use of ciNPWT should be considered. However, randomized clinical trials are needed to establish the superiority of the ciNPWT dressing over the standard one.
