Research report
A research report is the sourced material a domain
dossier is synthesized from — generated on a plan and a cadence, one topic per file.
A report carries no confidence tags. Its bracketed markers say who might have
an incentive to shade a line; none of them says anyone checked it. To reach a score, a line has
to be drafted onto a candidate as unverified and pass the Verifier or the
Corroborator, like everything else.
Section clinical-evidence · Version 2026-09-20 · Cadence annual · Evidence class mixed · Sources 7 · Supersedes none
Domain: canine-equine-distal-limb-wounds · Scope: Public primary sources reachable by this repo's connectors, WebSearch and WebFetch. The primary article (DOI 10.1111/evj.13487) is subscription-only; publisher hosts returned HTTP 403 and the institutional deposit requires sign-in, so no line here rests on its Methods text. Excludes CPT (Current Procedural Terminology) descriptors, licensed veterinary datasets, fda.gov guidance documents, anything behind unset EPO (European Patent Office)_OPS credentials, and non-US/non-EU jurisdictions.
Sourcing: The device attribution for this one study rests entirely on one secondary tabulation in a peer-reviewed scoping review; the canistered form factor of the system that tabulation names rests on two FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) 510(k) (premarket notification) records; the primary article's own Methods text was never retrieved.
The published abstract of Haspeslagh et al. (Equine Veterinary Journal, 2022) names no negative-pressure wound therapy device, no manufacturer and no form factor, in either the PubMed record or the Ghent University Academic Bibliography record of the same article [1][5]. The article's full text was not retrieved: publisher hosts returned HTTP 403 and the institutional deposit is access-restricted, so nothing here rests on the paper's own Methods section. One device name for this study was found, in a device-per-study table in an independent peer-reviewed scoping review; because exactly one source carries it, it is set out in section 3 with its marker rather than here. The system that table names belongs to a product line whose FDA 510(k) records describe therapy units paired with separately cleared, model-numbered canisters [3][4]. A later review tabulating the same study reports no device for it [6], so no corroborating tabulation exists to be found.
_Baseline (v1). No prior version; this establishes the starting point for future diffs._
The PubMed record for PMID (PubMed identifier) 34115409 carries the journal's structured abstract in full, including its Methods paragraph — "Circular wounds were created on the left and right dorsomedial metacarpus of 10 horses… In all horses, one limb was treated with NPWT (negative-pressure wound therapy), the other with calcium alginate dressings" [1]. No device, manufacturer, model, pressure setting or dressing interface appears anywhere in it. The Ghent University Academic Bibliography record for the same article (Equine Veterinary Journal 2022; 54(3): 592–600) reproduces the identical abstract and likewise names no device; its one deposited file returns a sign-in page rather than a PDF [5].
The 2023 scoping review by Cantatore et al. includes "Table 2. List of the NPWT devices which were used in the studies considered in the review and their manufacturers." Its row for this study reads, verbatim: "KCL Medical | VAC ATS | Haspelaslagh, M., et al., 2020" [2] [single-source]. The reference number on that row resolves, in the review's own reference list, to "Haspeslagh M., Van Hecke L.L., Hermans K., Chiers K., Pint E., Wilmink J.M., Martens A.M. Limited added value of negative pressure wound therapy compared with calcium alginate dressings for second intention healing in a noncontaminated and contaminated equine distal limb wound model", and the same number is used in the narrative sentence "Haspeslagh et al. (2021) provided disappointing results on the second-intention healing of surgically induced contaminated and non-contaminated wounds on distal limbs" [2]. Three transcription errors sit on that row as printed: the author name is spelled "Haspelaslagh", the year is given as 2020 (and as 2021 in the narrative) against a 2022 journal issue, and the manufacturer string "KCL Medical" matches no other row in the same table, which spells the firm "KCI" four times [2].
FDA's 510(k) database holds a clearance to Kci USA, Inc., decided 2007-01-25, for "V.A.C. FREEDOM CANISTER, MODEL M6275421; V.A.C. ATS CANISTER, MODELS K6275422, M6275423" (K063590 (an FDA 510(k) clearance number)) [3]. A later clearance to the same applicant, decided 2012-05-31, covers "ACTIVAC THERAPY UNIT AND INFOVAC THERAPY UNIT, VAC ATS THERAPY UNIT AND VAC FREEDOM THERAPY UNIT, VAC VIA THERAPY UNIT" (K120033) [4]. The V.A.C. ATS is therefore a named therapy unit with its own separately cleared, model-numbered canisters — the conventional canistered configuration rather than a canister-free single-use one.
Nothing retrieved describes the dressing or interface used in this study: the scoping review's Table 1 row for it gives treatment duration and leaves the bandage-change column empty [2], and the later review's row reads "Data not presented" [6]. A figure caption said to describe a polyurethane dressing cut to a spectacle shape, sealed under occlusive foil with a suction pad applied over it, sits on a ResearchGate page that returned HTTP 403 and was not retrieved; it is recorded in section 5 as not retrieved and no line here rests on it. The pump's identity and the dressing's identity are separate questions, and only the first has any source behind it.
Kamus et al. (BMC Veterinary Research, 2019) tested "a new lightweight, portable and disposable unit of NPWT (PICO (population, intervention, comparator, outcome)®)" in horses and reported that "All horses readily tolerated the PICO® but difficulties with adhesion and seal prevented the completion of the experimental wound study" [7]. The same Table 2 attributes PICO® (Smith & Nephew, Lachine, Canada) to that study and to no other [2].
[1] Limited added value of negative pressure wound therapy compared with calcium alginate dressings for second intention healing in a noncontaminated and contaminated equine distal limb wound model — Equine Veterinary Journal, via PubMed (published 2022 May; day not given in the PubMed record; accessed 2026-09-20). PMID 34115409; DOI 10.1111/evj.13487 — https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34115409/ [peer-reviewed]
[2] Negative-Pressure Wound Therapy (NPWT) in Horses: A Scoping Review — Veterinary Sciences (published 2023-08-06; accessed 2026-09-20). PMID 37624295; PMC10458497; DOI 10.3390/vetsci10080507 — https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC10458497/fullTextXML [peer-reviewed]
[3] Cleared 510(k) — V.A.C. FREEDOM CANISTER, MODEL M6275421; V.A.C. ATS CANISTER, MODELS K6275422, M6275423, Kci USA, Inc. — FDA openFDA device/510k (decision date 2007-01-25; accessed 2026-09-20). K063590 — https://api.fda.gov/device/510k.json?search=k_number:%22K063590%22 [federal-registry]
[4] Cleared 510(k) — ACTIVAC THERAPY UNIT AND INFOVAC THERAPY UNIT, VAC ATS THERAPY UNIT AND VAC FREEDOM THERAPY UNIT, VAC VIA THERAPY UNIT, Kci USA, Inc. — FDA openFDA device/510k (decision date 2012-05-31; accessed 2026-09-20). K120033 — https://api.fda.gov/device/510k.json?search=k_number:%22K120033%22 [federal-registry]
[5] Repository record for "Limited added value of negative pressure wound therapy… equine distal limb wound model" — Ghent University Academic Bibliography (record undated on the page; describes an article published 2022; accessed 2026-09-20). Handle 1854/LU-8719353, record for DOI 10.1111/evj.13487 — https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8719353 [other]
[6] Advantages and disadvantages of negative pressure wound therapy in equine wound treatment — RUDN Journal of Agronomy and Animal Industries, Vol. 20 No. 1, pp. 61–78 (published 2025; day and month not given on the article page; accessed 2026-09-20). DOI 10.22363/2312-797X-2025-20-1-61-78 — https://agrojournal.rudn.ru/agronomy/article/view/20168/en_US [peer-reviewed]
[7] Feasibility of a disposable canister-free negative-pressure wound therapy (NPWT) device for treating open wounds in horses — BMC Veterinary Research (published 2019-03-06; accessed 2026-09-20). PMID 30841889; DOI 10.1186/s12917-019-1829-5 — https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30841889/ [peer-reviewed]
Well established: That the study's published abstract names no device, manufacturer or form factor — two independent repositories carry the same abstract text and neither contains one [1][5]. That the V.A.C. ATS is a therapy unit with separately cleared, model-numbered canisters — two distinct FDA 510(k) records, one for the canisters and one for the therapy unit [3][4]. That a canister-free single-use device was trialled in horses in a different study, by different authors, with its own published result [7][2].
Thin: The attribution of a device to this study rests on one row of one table in one review [2] and carries [single-source]. That row is printed with a misspelled author name, a year that disagrees with the journal issue, and a manufacturer string that disagrees with four other rows of the same table. The review's authors cannot have taken the device name from the abstract, since the abstract does not contain one, and the review does not say where they did take it from.
Rescoped from class 3: None in this report. The manifest question is a class-2 question about what a published document states, and was researched as asked.
Out of scope: The Methods text of DOI 10.1111/evj.13487 itself. beva.onlinelibrary.wiley.com and onlinelibrary.wiley.com both returned HTTP 403; the Ghent University deposit (file 8756724 under record 8719353) returned a sign-in page; Semantic Scholar reports the record as closed access with no open-access PDF; scholar.archive.org returned a rate-limit page. That is a paywall plus bot mitigation, not a gap in searching.
Not searched vs. not found:
[inference] If the scoping review's Table 2 row is right, the unfavourable distal-limb result came from a conventional canistered therapy unit, and would then bear only indirectly on a canister-free single-use form factor — the two differ in dressing, interface, seal area and achievable pressure, and the one published equine trial of a canister-free device failed on seal and adhesion rather than on healing outcome [7]. That reading is mine and no source states it. It also rests on a single-source attribution carrying three visible transcription errors on the same table row, which is a thin foundation for a generalisation in either direction.
[inference] "KCL Medical" is most plausibly a typographical error for "KCI Medical", the spelling used in four other rows of the same table, and "VAC ATS" for the "V.A.C.® ATS®" product name in the FDA records [3][4]. No source states the correction, and nothing above treats it as established.
| Proposition | Evidence class | Resolvable identifier | Dossier section |
|---|---|---|---|
| The published abstract of Haspeslagh et al., Equine Veterinary Journal 2022;54(3):592–600, names no NPWT device, manufacturer, model or form factor | 2 published | PMID 34115409; DOI 10.1111/evj.13487 | clinical-evidence |
| Table 2 of Cantatore et al. 2023 attributes the NPWT system "VAC ATS" (manufacturer printed as "KCL Medical") to the Haspeslagh et al. equine distal-limb wound study | 2 published | PMID 37624295; DOI 10.3390/vetsci10080507 | clinical-evidence |
| FDA cleared "V.A.C. ATS CANISTER, MODELS K6275422, M6275423" to Kci USA, Inc. with a decision date of 2007-01-25 | 1 registry | K063590 | reference-products |
| FDA cleared the "VAC ATS THERAPY UNIT" to Kci USA, Inc. within a 510(k) decided 2012-05-31 | 1 registry | K120033 | reference-products |
| Kamus et al. 2019 reported that the PICO canister-free single-use NPWT dressing failed on adhesion and seal, preventing completion of an experimental open-wound study in horses | 2 published | PMID 30841889; DOI 10.1186/s12917-019-1829-5 | clinical-evidence |
| A 2025 review of NPWT in equine wound treatment tabulates the Haspeslagh et al. study without naming any device or manufacturer for it | 2 published | DOI 10.22363/2312-797X-2025-20-1-61-78 | clinical-evidence |
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