Managing skin grafts with TNP and Wound Assist®

Abstract

Skin grafting is one of the most common operations performed in plastic surgery. This is now spreading rapidly to other disciplines, but can pose a variety of wound care problems for nurses. Shearing or displacement of the graft prevents revascularization of the graft, therefore immobilization is important. An ideal dressing for a skin graft should prevent mechanical displacement, allow drainage of serous wound exudate and haematoma, and be easy and painless to change. Application of topical negative pressure (TNP) ensures stabilization of the skin graft as well as prevention of shear and seroma formation underneath the skin graft, thus preventing loss of skin graft and promoting `take`. Use of TNP ensures graft take and means that the patients do not need to go back to the operating theatre for further grafting and can be discharged earlier. This paper sets out to demonstrate the use of Wound Assist® (Huntleigh Healthcare), on newly applied skin grafts.