Bio-Occlusive Gauze with Tegaderm: A Dressing for Surgical Wounds in Primary THA and TKA

Background: We introduce a simple, cost-effective bio-occlusive dressing to be used for primary total hip arthroplasty (THA) and primary total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Methods: The gauze-Tegaderm™ (GT) dressing consists of a 5cm wide 8-layered gauze covered by 3 to 5 medium-sized Tegaderm transparent films. We prospectively evaluated 100 consecutive primary THA’s and 107 consecutive primary TKA’s utilizing this dressing with a minimum of one-year follow-up. Results: In the primary THA group, there was one surgical site infection (SSI) requiring oral antibiotic treatment. There were no cases of periprosthetic joint infection (PJI). In the primary TKA group, there were two surgical site infections requiring oral antibiotic treatment and one case of chronic PJI requiring a two-stage exchange protocol. Discussion: Our SSI and PJI rates are comparable to published rates in the literature. The GT dressing is a simple, inexpensive dressing that can compete against the many proprietary bio-occlusive dressings that are more expensive and are not readily available worldwide. Our favorable review has merited a large volume randomized controlled study comparing the GT dressing to another proprietary bio-occlusive dressing.