Potential Abuse of Negative Pressure Wound Therapy (NPWT)

NPWT is a promising adjunct in the treatment of surgical and non-surgical wounds. These include wounds due to trauma, pressure ulcers, chronic venous or arterial ulcers, radiation-induced wounds, burns, neuropathic wounds, necrotic wounds, high output lymph or serous fluid producing wounds. NPWT can easily become a method of treatment in the absence of other effective modalities which may be costly and only postpone an inevitable debridement or secondary closure. It may become a “lazy” way of treating wounds.