Epidermal grafting versus split-thickness skin grafting for wound healing (EPIGRAAFT): study protocol for a randomised controlled trial.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Split-thickness skin grafting (SSG) is an important modality for wound closure. However, the donor site becomes a second, often painful wound, which may take more time to heal than the graft site itself and holds the risk of infection and scarring. Epidermal grafting (EG) is an alternative method of autologous skin grafting that harvests only the epidermal layer of the skin by applying continuous negative pressure on the normal skin to raise blisters. This procedure has minimal donor site morbidity and is relatively pain-free, allowing autologous skin grafting in an outpatient setting. We plan to compare EG to SSG and to further investigate the cellular mechanism by which each technique achieves wound healing.

Methods/design

EPIGRAAFT is a multicentre, randomised,

SUBMITTER: Kanapathy M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4869340 | biostudies-literature | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature