Vacuum-assisted closure of perineal war wound related to rectum

Vacuum-assisted wound closure therapy has widely been used in various clinical applications with successful results and has considerably increased in popularity over the past decade. The patient who sustained a complex war wound to his perineum has been presented.

After the initial treatment he was discharged from the hospital in which he had been treated for 4 days in Iraq. On the examination, all wounds were deeply contaminated with foreign bodies and also involved significant volume of devitalized tissue. Perineal injury had not only caused a large skin defect but also left a deep wound leading to rectal perforation, so the wound and its borders were quite contaminated and infected by rectal contents. After improving his general condition with medical treatment, he underwent an immediate operation in which first a colostomy was performed and then the wound tract placed between perineum and rectum was sharply and extensively debrided to viable-appearing bleeding tissue to remove the whole necrotic tissues, foreign bodies, cloths, and debris. At the end of the intervention, a negative pressure dressing was applied and used during 12 days and then completed.

The wound tract obliterated entirely without permitting any leakage of rectal contents, and wound bed appeared clean, granulated, contracted, and viable enough for definitive closure with flap mobilization.

When dealing with this experience presenting an unusual wound that was in a very difficult area of the body for the treatment, perineum, caused from a challenging reason, war injury, and also was complicated with rectal injury, the technique seems to have a significant beneficial effect on the healing of complicated wounds such as in perineal wound and war wound, even if these are at risk of severe infection and progressive tissue necrosis.