A novel way to treat skin tears

Abstract

Skin tears are one of the most commonly treated wounds in the elderly population. In their most basic form, they are essentially traumatic random pattern flaps. We postulate that the injured blood flow to these skin flaps should be ignored and the tissue should be treated as a skin graft. A case report is presented of an 86-year-old female with an 8 × 3·5 cm skin tear to her right upper extremity after a hip fracture. In addition to conventional wound closure strips re-approximating the tissues, a disposable negative pressure wound therapy device was placed to act as bolster. Upon its removal on day 5, the opposed skin tear tissue was found to be 100% viable. We therefore propose that this update may be an improvement over classical skin tear treatments and should be followed up with a case series.