Treatment of infection with the use of carbon dioxide laser: a 10-year experience.

ABSTRACT Despite technical advances in the surgical treatment of infected wounds, this surgery remains a serious problem as it represents more than 27% of infection complications. In the majority of these operations, the wounds are left open and patients undergo long treatments of antibiotics. When the carbon dioxide laser technique was introduced in our country in 1984, it was tested using quantitative bacteriology: it was shown that when used on infected wounds, it reduced the bacterial population of these lesions to low levels with low tissue injury. At our center, between August 1984 and 1994, 539 patients with infected wounds were treated using a carbon dioxide laser. Out of 495 patients (91.84%) 1 patient was cured, 37 patients (6.86%) required more than one operation to be cured, and in 7 patients (1.30%) the treatment failed.