Why the study?
Postoperative bandage use prevents sternal complications after median sternotomy, but reduced chest excursion may impair respiratory muscles and cause hypoxia, raising questions about whether continuous or periodic wearing is advisable.
Does wearing a bandage 24/7 for 6 weeks prevent sternal instability and improve healing in patients after median sternotomy?
Does wearing a bandage 24/7 for 6 weeks prevent sternal instability and improve healing in patients after median sternotomy?
Continuous wearing of a chest bandage for 6 weeks post-sternotomy appears to improve sternal healing and reduce complications compared to periodic use, despite theoretical risks of respiratory muscle impairment.
The review covers the issue of postoperative complications after median sternotomy including acute and chronic pain syndrome, superficial surgical site infections and mediastinitis. Post-sternotomy wearing of bandage prevents sternal dehiscence and wound infection. According to the available data, bandage reduces the incidence of sternal instability and improved sternal healing. However, reduced chest excursion following wearing of bandage can negatively affect the respiratory muscles and result hypoxia. These data inspire the opinion on advisability of only periodic wearing of bandage in postoperative period. Analyzing appropriate literature data, we found that wearing of bandage throughout 6 postoperative weeks 24/7 together with all necessary rehabilitation measures after median sternotomy reduces the incidence of sternal instability, ensures faster healing, shorter hospital-stay, lower incidence of sternal diastasis after sternotomy, number of repeated hospitalizations due to sternal instability and higher quality of life.
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Arkhipova et al. (2023) studied this question.
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