To investigate the influence of age, diabetes, infection and negative pressure treatment on the healing of anterior thorax incision in early postoperative cardiac surgery.

Two hundred and sixty one patients with early postoperative dehiscence of anterior thorax incision were selected from July 2017 to July 2019 in the Department of Burns and Plastic Surgery, Beijing Fengtai You Anmen Hospital. Patients were divided into 2 groups respectively according to different factors of age, diabetes or not, infection or not, whether to use negative pressure closure drainage treatment. There were 109 cases in the younger group(≤56 years old) and 152 cases in the older group(>56 years old). There were 111 cases in the diabetic group and 150 cases in the non-diabetic group. There were 146 cases in the infected group and 115 cases in the non-infected group. There were 119 cases in the negative pressure closure drainage group and 142 cases in the non-negative pressure closure drainage group. The patients were followed up online or in the outpatient for redness, swelling and rupture of the sternal incision skin.Incision healing time and hospital stay of two groups of patients were evaluated and compared. The data were processed with t test.

No redness, swelling or ulceration of the sternal incision skin was observed in the patients after 3-6 months of follow-up. The incision healing time and the length of hospital stay in the younger group were (12.7±3.6), (24.9±9.5) d respectively, compared with the older group [(17.8±5.4), (30.7±14.2) d], the differences were statistically significant (t=9.359, 13.861; with P values below 0.05). The incision healing time and the length of hospital stay in the diabetic group were (15.4±4.6), (29.1±12.4) d respectively, compared with the non-diabetic group [(14.7±3.8), (27.7±9.1) d], the differences were not statistically significant (t=0.162, 0.031; with P values above 0.05). The incision healing time and the length of hospital stay in infected group were (15.5±4.3), (30.6±14.1) d respectively, compared with the non-infected group [(14.3±4.2), (29.6±12.7) d], the differences were not statistically significant (t=0.775, 0.648; with P values above 0.05). The incision healing time and the length of hospital stay in the negative pressure closure drainage group were (11.6±3.7), (32.4±13.2) d respectively, compared with the non-negative pressure closure drainage group [(15.7±4.2), (23.9±10.7) d], the differences were statistically significant (t=6.831, 3.957; with P values below 0.05).

Factors such as diabetes and infection do not affect the healing time of the incision in the early postoperative cardiac surgery. Negative pressure closure drainage treatment can shorten the healing time of the incision incision, and age can be an important indicator of the incision healing time.