Negative pressure dressing assisted healing in pediatric burn patients

Pediatric burn patients traditionally require multiple dressing changes and significant amounts of narcotics. Negative pressure dressings (NPDs) have emerged as an effective wound therapy that may represent an alternative primary dressing for these patients.

This is a single institution, retrospective study of pediatric burn patients treated with NPDs over a defined 2 year period. Twenty-two patients were identified and their charts reviewed for age, sex, mode of injury, location of injury, degree of burn, length of stay, length of dressing required, number of dressing changes, and narcotic use between dressing changes.

The average patient was 3.5 years old (range of 8 months to 10 years old) with partial thickness burns involving 8.5% (range 3-18%) body surface area. The average treatment regimen was 3.5 dressing changes more than 6.6 days, with a mean hospital stay of 9.6 days. The average child received 9.4 total doses of delivered narcotics during their inpatient care.

The use of NPD in pediatric burn patients does require sedation and narcotics which limits its usefulness in the general pediatric burn population. Yet, they adhere well and stay in place even on active children, they capture and quantify fluid losses, they only require changes every 2-4 days and promote the adherence of split thickness skin grafts making them useful in various clinical situations.

NPDs are a viable option for both partial and full thickness burns in pediatric patients that do not require transfer to a burn unit. NPDs may be advantageous in highly active children, those with extensive fluid losses, those that require sedation for dressing changes and those that will require grafting.