A Prospective Randomized Trial of Vacuum-Assisted Closure Versus Standard Therapy of Chronic Nonhealing Wounds

Abstract

Chronic, open, nonhealing wounds pose a continual challenge in medicine. Our objective was to evaluate vacuum-assisted closure (VAC)* therapy's ability to improve the healing rate of chronic wounds compared to the traditional saline-wet-to-moist (WM) dressings. Twenty-four patients with 36 chronic, nonhealing wounds were enrolled in the study after obtaining proper consent. Subjects were randomized to the VAC group or the control group. Biopsies and wound measurements were obtained by blinded independent wound evaluators. The most significant difference was the change in depth of 66 percent for VAC compared to 20 percent for WM (p