Comparison of chemical matricectomy with naoh and wegde resection in the treatment of ingrown nail

Objective: Ingrown nail is a common problem seen in the dermatology clinics. Aim of this study is to compare the wedge resection method and chemical matricectomy with sodium hydroxide (NAOH) which are widely used in terms of operation time, intraoperative and postoperative pain severity, postoperatif drainage, recurrence rates, recovery time and the effects on Dermatology Qulity of Life Index (DQLI) Material and Metods: This study included 60 patients admitted to Republic of Turkey Ministry of Health Yildirim Beyazit University Ankara Ataturk Training and Research Hospital Department of Dermatology between June 2014-August 2015 and diagnosed as ingrown nail. Median age was 30.87 years (range between 18-64). Fourty two nail edges of thirty patients were treated with NAOH for chemical matricectomy and wedge resection was performed for 33 nail edges of 30 patients. Intraoperatif time, intraoperatif and postoperatif pain severity, intraoperatif drainage, recovery time, recurrence rates and DQLI scores were recorded. Results: There were no statically significant differences between the 2 groups for gender, age, body mass index, duration of disease, type and stage factors (p>0.05). Operation time for chemical matricectomy and wedge resection was an average of 7.66 + 3.65 and 19.25 + 5.54 minutes, recpectively, and there was a statistically significant difference in operation times between groups (p<0.001). Recovery time for chemical matricectomy was an average of 17.27 + 14.22 days and for wedge resection was an average of 28.85 + 17.03 days, and the difference was statistically significant (p=0.004). Intraoperative pain severity was found higher in the chemical matricectomy group (p=0.043). Pain severity in the postoperative 3 day was found significantly higher in the wedge resection group (p=0.001). Drainage in the postoperative acut period was significantly higher in the wedge resection group (p=0.036). Recurrence was detected in the 5.4 % of the nail egdes treated with chemical matricectomy and in the 3.6% of the nail edges treated with wedge resection. There were no statistically significant differences between the groups for recurrence rates (p=1.000). There were statistically significant differences between the groups for both preoperative and postoperative 1 month DQLI scores, whereas score curves of the two groups were parallel to each other. Conclusıon:Absence of differences for the recurrence rates between wedge resection method and chemical matricectomy method with NAOH shows that effectiveness of these approches are similar. It seems that quite short operation and recovery times in the chemical matricectomy approch is the main advantage of the method. In addition, as it requires less equipment and easy to perform, it can be preferred for the cases in which quick wound healing and time saving are desired Key Words: Ingrown nail, NAOH, Chemical matricectomy, Wegde resection