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Evidence summaries

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for Treating Acute Surgical and Traumatic Wounds

Adjunctive hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) might possibly improve acute surgical and traumatic wound healing, but the evidence is insufficient. Level of evidence: "D"

The quality of evidence is downgraded by study quality (unclear allocation concealment, lack of blinding, incomplete outcome data, selective reporting).

Summary

A Cochrane review [Abstract] 1 included 4 studies with a total of 229 subjects. One trial (48 participants with burn wounds undergoing split skin grafts) compared HBOT with usual care and reported a significantly higher complete graft survival associated with HBOT (95% healthy graft area risk ratio (RR) 3.50; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.35 to 9.11). A second trial (10 participants in free flap surgery) reported no significant difference between graft survival (no data available). A third trial (36 participants with crush injuries) reported significantly more wounds healed (RR 1.70; 95% CI 1.11 to 2.61), and significantly less tissue necrosis (RR 0.13; 95% CI 0.02 to 0.90) with HBOT compared to sham HBOT. The fourth trial (135 people undergoing flap grafting) reported no significant differences in complete graft survival with HBOT compared with dexamethasone (RR 1.14; 95% CI 0.95 to 1.38) or heparin (RR 1.21; 95% CI 0.99 to 1.49).

Clinical comments

Note

Date of latest search: 2013-08-21

References

  • Eskes A, Vermeulen H, Lucas C et al. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy for treating acute surgical and traumatic wounds. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2013;(12):CD008059. [PubMed]

Primary/Secondary Keywords