Topical Oxygen Jet Therapy (TOJT) for treating infected chronic surgical wounds

To evaluate the effectiveness of Topical Oxygen Jet Therapy (TOJT) in the treatment of surgical wounds in adult patients who has clinical signs of infection for over 30 days; and to identify the pathogens causing complicated skin and soft tissue infections.

Parallel, randomized clinical trials randomly divided into "Control Group" (CG) and "Treatment Group" (TG), which were followed up for 10 consecutive days. Venous antibiotics and dressings were used in both groups. In addition, TOJT were used on the wounds in the TG. The outcome criteria were based on clinical indicators: Pressure Ulcer Scale for Healing (PUSH) and Visual Analog Scale Pain (VAS). The paired t-test or Wilcoxon, chi-squared or Fisher's exact test, and Student's t-test or Mann-Whitney tests were used with a significance level of 5%.

73 inpatients were included and followed up: 39 in TG and 34, CG. There were no significant differences in socio-demographic variables or of initial laboratory tests, except for blood glucose that was higher in TG than in CG (p = 0.044). Ten days into treatment, both the area of PUSH wounds (p < 0.001) and the pain scale (p = 0.029) were significantly reduced in TG. Staphylococcus aureus was the most prevalent pathogen (40%) with no significant difference between the two groups.

Although the follow-up time was of only ten days, a significant improvement was observed in TG. As a limitation of the study, the small sample size precluded the comparison of S. aureus infections between the two groups.

TOJT accelerated the healing process, reduced pain and contributed to an improvement in the clinical status of the wounds when compared to CG. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness and relevance of the employed technique. It can be easily incorporated as a routine procedure in hospitals without extra investment.