Split-Thickness Skin Grafting of Traumatic Wounds in an Ecuadorian Center

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Introduction: Split-thickness skin grafting is generally used for temporary or permanent coverage of cutaneous defects, including traumatic wounds; they are suitable for large areas of skin loss, granulating tissue beds, tissue loss across joints in areas where contraction will cause deformity, and where epithelialization alone will produce an unstable wound coverage. Objective: Describe graft size, wound location, associated complications, and hospitalization costs in patients who underwent split-thickness skin grafting for traumatic wounds Materials and Methods: retrospective, observational study conducted at Luis Vernaza Hospital during 2022. Data was obtained from the electronic medical records of the patients and organized using Microsoft Excel ®, later they were analyzed using SPSS 25.0 ®. A descriptive report of the clinical-demographic characteristics was made. The qualitative variables were described through frequencies and percentages. Results: 130 patients were included, 25.38% were female and 74.72% male. Most frequent age group was < 40 years (n = 73; 56.15%), most wounds presented in the lower extremities (n = 115; 88.46%) and were mostly caused by road traffic accidents (n = 72; 55.38%). In 86.15% of patients 100% of the grafts were integrated in less than 7 days. Total hospitalization costs averaged $1181.77, including the surgical procedure; maximum length-of-stay was 30 days with an average hospitalization cost of $3183.67. Comorbidities included type 2 diabetes mellitus and hypoproteinemia (40.59%). Complications included infection (22.77%), hematoma (0.99%) and one patient had a total graft loss. Conclusions: split-thickness skin grafting represents a reliable procedure for coverage of many cutaneous injuries, including traumatic wounds, with an acceptable success rate. By following the basic precepts of wound healing along with meticulous tissue handling, split-thickness skin grafting has the potential to play an important role in wound ........