Background: Surgical wound-healing complications after tumor resections in tissue that has been preoperatively radiated are a major clinical problem. Most studies have reported that complications occur in more than 30% of patients undergoing such resections in the lower extremity. There is currently no available method to predict which patients are likely to have a complication. Transcutaneous oximetry has been identified in preliminary studies as potentially useful, but the available evidence on its efficacy for this application thus far is inconclusive.
Questions/purposes: (1) Does transcutaneous oximetry measurement below 25 mmHg at any location in the surgical wound bed predict a wound-healing complication? (2) Does recovery (increase) in transcutaneous oxygen measurement during the rest period between the end of radiation and the time of surgery protect against wound-healing complications?
Methods: A prospective, multi-institution study was coordinated to measure skin oxygenation at three timepoints in patients undergoing surgery for a lower extremity soft tissue sarcoma after preoperative radiation. Between 2016 and 2020, the five participating centers treated 476 patients for lower extremity soft tissue sarcoma. Of those, we considered those with a first-time sarcoma treated with radiation before limb salvage surgery as potentially eligible. Based on that, 21% (98 of 476) were eligible; a further 12% (56 of 476) were excluded because they refused to participate or ultimately, they were treated with a flap, amputation, or skin graft. Another 1% (3 of 476) of patients were lost because of incomplete datasets or follow-up less than 6 months, leaving 8% (39 of 476) for analysis here. The mean patient age was 62 ± 14 years, 62% (24 of 39) of the group were men, and 18% (7 of 39) of patients smoked cigarettes; 87% (34 of 39) of tumors were intermediate/high grade, and the most common histologic subtype was undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma. In investigating complications, a cutoff of 25 mmHg was chosen based on a pilot investigation that identified this value. All patients were assessed for surgical wound-healing complications, which were defined as: those resulting in a return to the operating room, initiation of oral or IV antibiotics, intervention for seroma, or prolonged wound packing or dressing changes. To answer the first research question, we compared the proportion of patients who developed a wound-healing complication between those patients who had any reading below 25 mmHg (7 of 39) and those who did not (32 of 39). To answer the second question, we compared the group with stable or decreased skin oxygenation (22 of 37 patient measurements [two patients missed the immediate postoperative measurement]) to the group that had increased skin oxygen measurement (15 of 37 measurements) during the period between the end of radiation and the surgical procedure; again, the endpoint was the development of a wound-healing complication. This study was powered a priori to detect an unadjusted odds ratio for wound-healing complications as small as 0.71 for a five-unit (5 mmHg) increase in TcO 2 between the groups, with α set to 0.05, β set to 0.2, and a sample size of 40 patients.
Results: We found no difference in the odds of a wound-healing complication between patients whose transcutaneous oxygen measurements were greater than or equal to 25 mmHg at all timepoints compared with those who had one or more readings below that threshold (odds ratio 0.27 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.05 to 1.63]; p = 0.15). There was no difference in the odds of a wound-healing complication between patients who had recovery of skin oxygenation between radiation and surgery and those who did not (OR 0.63 [95% CI 0.37 to 5.12]; p = 0.64).
Conclusion: Transcutaneous oximetry cannot be considered a reliable test in isolation to predict wound-healing complications. This may be a function of the fact that transcutaneous oximetry samples a relatively small portion of the landscape in which a wound-healing complication could potentially arise. In the absence of a reliable diagnostic test, clinicians must still use their best judgment regarding surgical timing and work to address modifiable risk factors to avoid complications. The unanswered question that remains is whether there is a skin perfusion or oxygenation issue at the root of these complications, which seems likely. Alternative approaches that can assess the wound more broadly and in real time, such as fluorescent probes, may be deserving of further investigation.
Level of evidence: Level II, diagnostic study.
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