OASIS Alert

Published on Thu Feb 12, 2009 PDF

Question: We are wondering what to call a leg ulcer -- related to sickle cell disease --which has been debrided and then skin grafted. In the Oasis Integrity Project Manual, May 2008,it states that a debrided skin graft is a surgical wound. We're now wondering if that means a debridement of an existing skin graft.

If the above graft is considered a surgical wound, what would a second grafting of the same wound with anApligraf be called? If we were correct in calling the debrided skin graft a surgical wound, would a second grafting with an Apligraf be considered surgical?

Answer: Debridement alone does not convert a chronic wound to a surgical wound, says wound expert Dorothy Doughty director of the Wound Ostomy Continence Nursing Education Center at Emory University in Atlanta. However, surgical debridement followed by a split thickness skin graft would change the classification to a surgical wound, she says.

Apligraf placement is non-surgical so Apligraf application would not convert a wound to a surgical wound, Doughty explains.