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Volume 10 Supplement 1

de Senectute: Age and Health Forum

Use of platelet gel after surgery for wound breakdown prevention in recurrent vulvar cancer: case report

Background

Vulvar carcinomas comprise almost 5% of all malignant tumors of the female genital tract [1]. Primary therapeutic approach is considered a radical surgery [2]. Infection and wound breakdown are the most common complications, these occur in approximately 40-60% of patients [3]. Objective to value the efficacy of platelet gel as support for reconstructive surgery in recurrent vulvar cancer.

Materials and methods

Five old caucasian women with a history of vulvar cancer, referred to our Department, were treated for recurrent vulvar cancer. Before the vulvar surgery recostruction, an application of platelet gel was performed.

Results

Our data about wound healing, compared to results of previous cases of vulvar recurrence treated by our department, immediately show a reduction of complications, early healing and patient mobilization with less hospital stay, minimizing the costs. Other advantages of this new technique are the facility of application, no influence on operative time and low cost.

Conclusions

In consideration of the most frequent complications that are reported after surgical treatment of vulvar recurrence, as difficult and longer healing due to frequent necrosis and breakdown of wounds, we had experimented with the use of platelet gel [3]. In fact, thanks to its properties of regenerating and repairing tissues, platelet gel is being used ever more frequently in reconstructive surgery [4]. The biological properties of platelet gel are basically due to the high concentrations of growth factors (GF) [4].

References

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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Morelli, M., Dominijanni, A., Del Negro, S. et al. Use of platelet gel after surgery for wound breakdown prevention in recurrent vulvar cancer: case report. BMC Geriatr 10 (Suppl 1), A67 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2318-10-S1-A67

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2318-10-S1-A67

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