Skin grafting: comparative evaluation of two dressing techniques in selected body areas

Skin grafting is a frequent surgical procedure used to reconstruct a soft-tissue deficit. Tie-over bolster dressing is the traditional technique made to fix the graft to the recipient area. This dressing does not always provide satisfactory results in some difficult body areas, with poor skin graft taking as an outcome. Here, we used a soft "polyurethane sponge" as a compressive tool.

A therapeutic protocol was used to select patients, splitting them into 2 groups: tie-over bolster dressing versus polyurethane sponge. Data analysis and calculation of sample size were performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences Windows version 13.0.

Of the 106 patients treated by traditional compressive dressing, 11 had complications, thus achieving a success rate of 89.6%. Of the 106 patients treated by polyurethane sponge dressing, 3 had complications, providing a success rate of 97.1%.

Compared with the conventional tie-over dressing, the sponge dressing technique was demonstrated to be more successful in graft taking in selected areas.