Introduction: Treatment of fingers tissue loss is particularly challenging as it often necessitates advanced reconstructive techniques such as flaps or grafts, with esthetic and functional results that are not always as good as hoped for, with long healing times. Recently, along with tissue engineering development, numerous types of dermal substitute have been commercialized, with promising possibilities of treatment in finger tissue loss. In the author's unit, Matriderm® is the most commonly used dermal substitute. As described by the manufacturer, this scaffold is designed to be covered with a split-thickness skin graft. In using a two-step procedure, the authors realized that in most cases of fingertips injuries, at three weeks follow-up, the wound appeared in an advanced state of healing, which permitted to avoid grafting.
Material and methods: Between October 2017 and October 2018, 27 fingers have been included in this study. Patients have been divided in two groups: those treated with Matriderm® alone (15 fingers) and those who had a skin graft three weeks after the first surgery (12 fingers). At the 6-month follow-up, authors evaluated the esthetic results with the Vancouver Scar Scale (VSS), the functional results with Quick Disability of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (qDASH) score, and sensibility by the mean of two-point discrimination test (2-PD).
Results: All outcomes were overlapping in patients treated with or without skin graft: mean VSS was 2.3, mean qDASH was 13.3, and mean 2-PD was 7.7 mm.
Conclusions: The results obtained allow to consider Matriderm® , used also without skin graft coverage, as a valid solution for treatment of fingertip tissue loss.
Keywords: Matriderm; dermal substitute; fingertip; skin graft; tissue loss.
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