The use of autologous epidermal grafts for diabetic foot ulcer emergencies: A clinical study

BACKGROUND: There are various surgical and invasive treatment systems such as conservative skin grafts and autologous epidermal grafting (AEG) for diabetic foot ulcers. This study aims to evaluate the feasibility of using a novel epidermal graft harvesting system in diabetic foot ulcer emergencies. METHODS: A retrospective clinical study was conducted with 15 diabetic foot ulcer patients, and after written and signed consent forms were taken, AEG system was applied to all patients. All of the clinical data of the patients such as their American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) Physical Status Classification System scores, size of pre-application wound area (cm(2)), time to complete re-epithelization of the wound, pain scores using the visual analog scale (VAS) for both donor and recipient sites, changes in size of wound, complete dermal response time, and patients’ demographics, comorbidities were recorded. The age, gender, pre-post application wound area (cm(2)), time of healing, ASA, and VAS variables were compared each other and analyzed statistically. P<0.05 was considered as statistically significant. RESULTS: The mean of time for complete wound healing was 5.9 (range 4–8) weeks. There was no statistically difference between recipient wound size and patient’s age; size of both types of wounds (cm(2)) and time (weeks) for complete reduction for both types of wounds; and time to complete both types of wound healing and gender (p=0.509, 0.788, and 0.233, respectively). ASA scores did not impact the time required for complete healing of the wound (p=0.749). CONCLUSION: The current study has tried to evaluate the efficacy of the AEG system in a homogenous population with diabetic foot ulcers. An epidermal harvesting system may be used effectively and safely in patients with diabetic foot ulcer emergencies.