

It is tempting to the surgeon to try early secondary skin suture, rather than skin-graft coverage, once the swelling has subsided. The simplest and safest technique is to cover the healthy soft-tissue defect with a split skin graft: at a later date, when the limb contours have returned to normal, the grafted area can be excised and secondary skin closure performed without tension. Once any skeletal injury is under control, the fasciotomy wound(s) healthy and the swelling of the soft tissues has sufficiently regressed, consideration must be given to achieving skin coverage. Reperfusion injury is another cause of compartment syndrome. After blood flow is restored, capillaries leak and ischemic muscle swells.


This critical level is the tissue pressure which collapses the capillary bed and prevents low-pressure blood flow through the capillaries and into the venous drainage. Compartment syndrome occurs when the pressure within a closed osteo-fascial muscle compartment rises above a critical level.
