The use of Omiderm as an interface for skin grafting.

Burn wounds which require skin grafts are often heavily contaminated. Conventional methods of skin grafting demand bulky dressings and immobilization for 3-5 days. During this period, we cannot treat the wound topically, but can only hope that the skin graft will win the battle against infection and survive on the wound. The concept of an interface that has emerged in the past few years allows us to treat the wound topically through a transparent, permeable membrane that covers the skin graft without disturbing it. Omiderm, a hydrophilic polyurethane film that was developed as a burn dressing, has been used as an interface on 10 patients. Skin grafts on problematical areas and heavily contaminated wounds were covered with 1:1.5 non-expanded meshed Omiderm. An external layer of dressing with a topical antimicrobial agent was changed 8-24 h postoperatively and then at regular intervals. About 75 per cent 'take' was achieved, which was better than expected with other dressings under similar conditions.