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Reverse-traction skin-stretching device for primary closure of large skin defects

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Abstract

The tension in the skin margin of a wound is the major determinant for wound healing. The difficulty of primary closure for large skin defects due to excessive wound tension has long been a clinical challenge. In this study, we designed and fabricated a reverse-traction skin-stretching device (RT-SSD) to relieve the skin tension of a large skin defect and thereby allow primary wound closure. The novel RT-SSD designed in this study drives the fixing device fixed on the skin edge of the wound by rotating the pulling device, thus exerting a reverse tensile force on both sides of the wound, causing creep and stress relaxation, thus reducing the skin tension. Through the tension analyses; microcirculation detection; clinical scores; and a series of histological staining in vivo, it is verified that intraoperative application of RT-SSD can stretch and straighten collagen and fragment elastin, thus effectively reducing skin tension of large skin defect of miniature pigs. In addition, its special linear and planar traction protects the subcutaneous microcirculation of the wound site. The evaluation of wound healing confirmed that RT-SSD had negligible negative impact on wounds, reduced the incidence of complications, and promoted the healing of large skin defects. Therefore, this study provides a new safe and effective device for the primary closure of large skin defects.

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Funding

This study was supported by Scientific Development Program of Jilin Province [20200404190YY, 20200404140YY] and Program of Jilin Provincial Health Department [2019SCZT014].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Orthopaedic Medical Center, The Second Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, 130041, People’s Republic of China

    Yutao Cui, Baoming Yuan, Yan Zhang, Guangkai Ren, Minghan Dou, Chuangang Peng & Dankai Wu

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  1. Yutao Cui
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  2. Baoming Yuan
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  3. Yan Zhang
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  4. Guangkai Ren
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  5. Minghan Dou
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  6. Chuangang Peng
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  7. Dankai Wu
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Contributions

YC: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing-original draft, Data curation. BY: Writing-review and editing, Methodology. YZ: Resources, Methodology, Data curation. GR: Data curation, Investigation. MD: Writing—review and editing. CP: Funding acquisition, Writing—review and editing. DW: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Writing—review and editing, Supervision.

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Correspondence to Dankai Wu.

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Cui, Y., Yuan, B., Zhang, Y. et al. Reverse-traction skin-stretching device for primary closure of large skin defects. Arch Dermatol Res 315, 751–760 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00403-022-02408-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00403-022-02408-1

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