Negative pressure therapy: a viable option for general surgical management of the open abdomen

Management of the open abdomen (OA) is challenging for surgeons and requires experienced medical teamwork. The need for improvements in temporary abdominal closure methods has led to the development of a negative-pressure therapy (NPT; ABThera OA NPT, KCI USA, Inc, San Antonio, TX).

The authors present a 19-patient case series documenting their use of NPT for OA management in nontraumatic surgery. All received NPT until the fascia was considered ready for closure.

Of 19 patients, 17 (89.5%) achieved fascial closure with a Kaplan-Meier (KM) median time to closure of 6 days. Mean hospital and intensive care unit stays were 32.1 and 26.6 days, respectively. During their hospitalization, 5 patients (26.3%) died, with a KM median time to mortality of 53 days.

These findings demonstrate effective use of NPT for managing the OA in critically ill patients, and this has led the authors to use it in their general surgery practice.