INITIAL EXPERIENCE WITH TOPICAL NEGATIVE PRESSURE THERAPY IN THE TREATMENT OF PEDIATRIC BURNS

: We are presenting the experience of the Referral Centre for Pediatric Traumatism of the Croatian Ministry of Health in the usage of topical negative pressure therapy (TNP) method for the treatment of pediatric burns. In the period of 20 months we have used negative pressure wound therapy method in eight children aged between 1.5 and 10 years. Burn injuries total body surface area ranged between 3% and 30%. TNP was used either for the wound bed conditioning or for the fixation of skin grafts. Average skin graft „take” was 86% eight days after surgery according to the evaluation by the senior author. Based on our initial experience, we can confirm that TNP is a very useful tool which enables good wound bed conditioning as well as a good fixation tool for skin grafts if the burned area does not exceed 30% of total body surface area.