Practice Innovations
Current approaches to the preservation of the partially avulsed skin lead to high percentage of treatment failure and tissue loss.
We propose a new approach to treat skin tear as a skin graft utilizing a multidimensional exoskeletal support bandage. We found that applying this method to treatment of 10 consecutive complex skin tears of varying sizes we can achieve near 100% flap survival with primary healing under 2 weeks.
10 patients with ISTAP class type 1 and 2 skin tears received medical treatment including single step application of the bandage. The dressing was left in place for one week. Patients were evaluated on return to the clinic to have dressing removed.
100% of patients treated with the novel skin tear bandage had complete and total survival of skin flaps with no infections or other complications.
Skin tears are an under-reported common wound in the elderly. As the population lives longer more geriatric patients are seeking care for skin tears in the acute and subacute setting. Changing the current treatment algorithm for skin tears is likely to substantially simplify the treatment, improve outcomes and decrease associated costs of care.