Negative pressure wound therapy vs. conventional management in open tibia fractures: Systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND

Severe open tibia fractures are disastrous injuries associated with a high incidence of complications. Negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) is a novel treatment for open tibia fractures; however, its efficacy remains unclear. This is a systematic review and meta-analysis performed to evaluate the effect of NPWT on decreasing the infection rate, amputation rate, nonunion rate, and flap-related complications in open tibia fractures.

METHODS

The MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library databases were systematically searched. Complications were evaluated in terms of the rates of infection, amputation, nonunion, and flap-related complications.

RESULTS

Twelve studies were included. In the meta-analysis, NPWT showed significantly lower soft-tissue infection rate (odds ratio [OR] 0.48, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.34-0.68, P < 0.0001), nonunion rate (OR 0.61, 95% CI 0.39-0.95, P = 0.03), flap necrosis rate (OR 0.37, 95% CI 0.21-0.63, P = 0.0003), and flap revision rate (OR 0.44, 95% CI 0.22-0.89, P = 0.02) than conventional wound management. However, no significant difference was found in osteomyelitis rate (OR 0.54, 95% CI 0.09-3.28, P = 0.50) and amputation rate (OR 0.89, 95% CI 0.36-2.22, P = 0.80) between the 2 groups.

CONCLUSION

Lower rates of soft-tissue infection, nonunion, flap necrosis, and flap revision were observed in the NPWT group than in the conventional dressing group. However, additional high-quality studies are warranted to verify the efficacy of NPWT in the treatment of severe open tibia fractures. We could not make a definitive conclusion about the comparative efficacy of the 2 methods in terms of complications because of insufficient data.