Comparative Study on Healing Frequencies: Packing versus Primary Closure in Surgically Drained Skin Abscesses

Abstract

Background: Localized collection of pus in skin abscesses caused by bacterial infections always required surgical drainage which is usually accompanied by wound packing or primary closure. Objectives: The objectives of the present study were to evaluate which of these two methods is faster in healing, caused less postoperative pain, patients stayed less in the hospital and created less complications after surgery. Methodology: A comparative study was conducted on 100 patients with acute skin abscesses. Group A was the packing group and group B was the primary closure group, and patients were equally divided. Findings were gathered on the based of time to heal, Visual Analog Scale(VAS) pain score, hospital stay, recurrence rate and complication rate. SPSS version 27.0 was used, descriptive statistics were performed using the T-test and Chi-square test ( p≤0.05) was considered statistically significant Results: The primary closure group showed statistically better results in terms of healing time, length of hospital stay, postoperative pain, and incidence of complications compared to the packing group. Recurrence rates were slightly higher in the packing group, but the difference was not statistically significant. Conclusion: The present study has suggested that primary closure was better method for overall outcome, therefore these results considered as the method of choice for management of skin abscesses that have been drained surgically for coming surgeons.