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COMPARISON BETWEEN THE EFFICACY OF VACUUM ASSISTED DRESSING VERSUS MOIST DRESSING IN TREATMENT OF DIABETIC FOOT ULCER

Dr. Mehsood Bin Saeed, Dr Rehana Sarfraz, Dr Muhammad Ahmad

Introduction: Foot infections are the most common cause of morbidity in patients with diabetes mellitus. The important triggering agent is minor trauma. Peripheral neuropathy is the commonest risk factor. Most are polymicrobial with gram positive cocci being the most common. Management involves multidisciplinary treatment. Objective: To compare efficacy of vacuum assisted dressing verses moist dressing in treatment of diabetic foot ulcer. Material and methods: A Randomized clinical trial in Surgical Department of P.O.F Hospital Wah Cantt, in which 64 patients with diabetic foot infections, from December 2014 to May 2015 were admitted and randomly divided in two groups with 32 each. Group A received VAC dressing and group B received moist wound dressing along with standard wound management. Efficacy was assessed on 02 weeks with presence of granulation tissue. Results: Data was analyzed using SPSS version 18. Among VAC group mean age was 53.53 years as compared to 55.21 years in moist dressing group. Among all the patient 39 (60.9%) patients were male and 25 (39.1%) were female patients. All the patients included in the study presented with active ulceration of foot. The history of ulceration ranged from 02 to 37 days in VAC group and from 02 to 45 days in moist dressing group. Among all patients 24 had good glycaemic control while rest of 40 patients showed uncontrolled levels. All the patients of VAC group showed full recovery at the end of treatment however only 07 patients recovered in moist dressing group and rest of 25 patients required longer duration for recovery. Mean duration of treatment required for VAC group was 7.6 days with standard deviation of 2.40. However, it was a lot higher for moist dressing group which turned out to be 20.6 days with standard deviation of 6.80. After applying all the statistics especially chi-square test the results are significant as P value is 0.0001. Conclusion: VAC is relatively a new technique to our part of the world. Vacuum aided wound closure method, provides faster and more comfortable treatment for all chronic wounds. VAC therapy should be encouraged by other institutes in Pakistan as well.

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