Application of low-pressure negative pressure wound therapy to ischaemic wounds

Negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) is a useful wound dressing that can be applied to a wide variety of wounds. Patients with ischaemic wounds, however, may experience further necrosis with NPWT at the commonly recommended pressure of -125 mm Hg. We hypothesized that with a suction pressure of -125 mm Hg, tissue pressure will likely occlude most of the capillaries adjacent to the wound edge. Therefore, we treated three patients with ischaemic wounds using low-pressure NPWT at -50 mm Hg. All wounds healed successfully without further necrosis at the wound edge.