Sequential Change of Wound Calculated by Image Analysis Using a Color Patch Method during a Secondary Intention Healing

BackgroundPhotographs of skin wounds have the most important information during the secondary intention healing (SIH). However, there is no standard method for handling those images and analyzing them efficiently and conveniently.ObjectiveTo investigate the sequential changes of SIH depending on the body sites using a color patch methodMethodsWe performed retrospective reviews of 30 patients (11 facial and 19 non-facial areas) who underwent SIH for the restoration of skin defects and captured sequential photographs with a color patch which is specially designed for automatically calculating defect and scar sizes.ResultsUsing a novel image analysis method with a color patch, skin defects were calculated more accurately (range of error rate: -3.39% ~ + 3.05%). All patients had smaller scar size than the original defect size after SIH treatment (rates of decrease: 18.8% ~ 86.1%), and facial area showed significantly higher decrease rate compared with the non-facial area such as scalp and extremities (67.05 ± 12.48 vs. 53.29 ± 18.11, P ConclusionFrom the results of sequential changes of skin defects, SIH can be recommended as an alternative treatment method for restoration with more careful dressing for initial two weeks.