Surgery is widely used to treat vulvar cancer. However, postoperative complications after a vulvectomy can occur in 26-85 % of the cases. Here, the authors describe a complete radical vulvectomy with bilateral inguinal lymph node dissection performed in two patients. Both patients developed infection and wound breakdown postoperatively. Due to failure of local care, negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) was started to reduce bacterial rates and tension on wound edges. Accelerated tissue healing was observed in both cases, as well as an improvement in the patients' quality of life.
Keywords: negative pressure wound therapy; vulvar carcinoma; wound breakdown.