UC Irvine

Current embodiments of negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) create a hermetically sealed chamber at the surface of the body using polyurethane foam connected to a vacuum pump, which is then covered by a flexible adhesive drape. Commercially available NPWT systems routinely use flexible polyethylene films that have a sticky side, coated with the same acrylate adhesives used in other medical devices such as ECG leads and grounding pads. Severe reactions to the acrylate adhesives in these other devices, although uncommon, have been reported. We describe the case of a 63-year-old woman with an intractable leg ulcer resulting from external-beam radiotherapy (XRT). Treatment with a standard commercial NPWT system induced severe inflammation of the skin in direct contact with drape adhesive. We successfully administered prolonged, outpatient NPWT to the patient using an alternative method (first described by Bagautdinov in 1986), using plain polyethylene film and petrolatum. The necessary hermetic seal is achieved by smearing the skin with petrolatum before applying the polyethylene film and activating the vacuum pump. The Bagautdinov method is a practical solution to the problem of adapting NPWT to patients with contact sensitivity or skin tears related to the adhesive compounds in the flexible drapes. Its use of a circumferential elastic wrap to maintain constant pressure on the seal probably limits the Bagautdinov technique to the extremities.