Pinch grafting of chronic leg ulcers: a retrospective analysis of 104 patients with 169 ulcers.

OBJECTIVE: To compare healing rates of inpatients and outpatients with chronic leg ulcers treated with pinch grafting and to define which of these patients would benefit most from the therapy.

METHOD: This retrospective analysis reports the healing rates of 104 patients with 169 ulcers treated with pinch grafting during 1997-2007 at the Department of Dermatology, Tampere University Hospital.

RESULTS: These relate to 17 outpatients with 18 pinch-grafted ulcers and 95 inpatients with 151 ulcers. Nine ulcers (50%) in the outpatient and 95 (62.9%) in the inpatient group healed completely. Median healing times were five and eight weeks for the outpatient and inpatient groups respectively. For the sample as a whole, 61.5% of the ulcers healed.

CONCLUSION: This retrospective study found that pinch grafting is an efficient method of treating chronic leg ulcers, with an overall healing rate over 60%. Patients who complied with compression therapy were most likely to benefit from this therapy.