Vulvar postoperative care, gestalt or evidence based medicine? A comprehensive systematic review

This paper reviews all current literature for vulvar postoperative care, and forms a summary of evidence based practice.

Scopus, Cochrane Library, CINHAL, Web of Science Core Collection, PubMed, Embase, Google Scholar, clinicaltrials.gov and Medline databases were searched.

Various combinations of key-terms were used to identify relevant articles. All identified primary research articles and review articles were then examined with their references in order to identify further relevant studies. The literature was examined within gynecology, gynecologic oncology, surgical oncology, urology, plastic surgery and dermatology.

A total of 199 studies were reviewed and 80 were included in this paper. All relevant studies pertaining to the subject were included. Studies were excluded if there was no relevance to the review as deemed by both authors.

There remains much room for improvement to minimize postoperative stay, decrease the chances of morbidity and improve patient outcome and satisfaction, while establishing standardized care pathways. Further research and clinical trials are needed in this area to help us to provide evidence-based care to our postoperative vulvar patient population.