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Kumar. Plast Aesthet Res 2019;6:32 Plastic and
DOI: 10.20517/2347-9264.2019.72 Aesthetic Research

Letter to Editor Open Access

Classification of negative pressure wound therapy

Pramod Kumar

Department of Plastic Surgery, King Fahad Central Hospital, Jazan 82666, Saudi Arabia.

Correspondence to: Dr. Pramod Kumar, Department of Plastic surgery, King Fahad Central Hospital, Jazan, Saudi Arabia.
E-mail: pkumar86@hotmail.com

How to cite this article: Kumar P. Classification of negative pressure wound therapy. Plast Aesthet Res 2019;6:32.
http://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2347-9264.2019.72

Received: 8 Dec 2019 Accepted: 10 Dec 2019 Published: 19 Dec 2019

Science Editor: Raúl González-García Copy Editor: Jing-Wen Zhang Production Editor: Tian Zhang

Since relatively new negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) has become an integral part of simple to
complex wound management, effective price transparency of NPWT should include the release of clear,
accurate, and actionable information for patients to determine their cost of treatment and remove the
guesswork. The amount and type of material used, number of hours of negative pressure application, cost
of maintaining negative pressure for a definite period, etc., usually determine the cost of NPWT. With this
idea of price transparency, the author attempted to classify NPWT in different ways. The author believes
that, with similar attempts by various authors in the future, a better classification would evolve.

A. Depending on the schedule of negative pressure and type of environment produced under the NPWT
device, it may be classified as:
[1]
1. Continuous NPWT [Vacuum Assisted Closure (VAC)] (KCI Medical, San Antonio, Texas) and
[2]
Versatile-1 Wound Vacuum System (Versatile-1 WVS) (Blue Sky Medical, La Costa Calif) .
[3,4]
2. Intermittent NPWT [Limited access dressing (LAD)] .
B. Depending on the interface material used between the tissue and device, NPWT may be classified as:
1. NPWT with interface such as foam, gauze, or other porous material that helps to distribute the negative
[4]
[1]
pressure uniformly over wound surface. Examples include VAC and Suction Assisted Sressing (SAD) .
In this type of NPWT devices, granulation grows in the pores of interface material and does not provide
favorable environment for epithelialization.
2. NPWT without interface material. An example is LAD. This type of NPWT is better for epithelialization.

© The Author(s) 2019. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
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