A wound VAC is negative pressure wound therapy. It’s one of the treatments offered at wound care centers. Negative pressure therapy means pulling the air out of a closed dressing, creating a vacuum. The negative pressure improves blood flow and pulls out excess fluid.
Here are the parts. The modern standard is a system that consists of a porous foam dressing to which continuous or intermittent suction is applied, which can be set to a pressure up to 125 mm Hg. Negative pressure wound therapy is also called vacuum-assisted closure (VAC). The foam itself is made from either polyurethane (black) or polyvinyl alcohol (white) and can be silver impregnated — which is why the dressing you see may be a different color from someone else’s.
What it is for: the therapy optimizes wound healing by applying subatmospheric pressure through specialized wound dressings. This approach reduces inflammatory exudate and promotes the formation of granulation tissue. Granulation tissue is the new tissue that fills a wound in from the bottom, so the therapy is working on the part of healing that has to happen before the surface can close.
It is used across a wide range of wounds. It’s effective for both acute and chronic wounds, and frequently applied to open wounds, including fractures, ulcers, and infected wounds, as well as open surgical wounds. The system can be placed in the operating room, at the bedside, or in an examination room. Disposable, battery-operated or mechanical versions are typically used for smaller wounds in people who are up and about.
One thing worth knowing from the start: pressure settings are tailored to different types of wounds. The number on somebody else’s machine, or on a video, is not a guide to what yours should read. If you do not know what yours is set to, that is a fair question to ask.