Achilles tendon repair may have consequences like hypertrophic scar and nonhealing wounds due to unsatisfactory vascularity at the incisional spot or much mechanical stress/strain at the incision during the healing process. 

The embrace^® scar therapy dressing comes as a tension offloading device for incisional scars, whose impact on Achilles scar formation was evaluated by a study. 

A 30-year-old male, free of any medical comorbidities with an acute rupture of his left Achilles tendon, who underwent open repair 1 week after injury was taken as the study subject. He was instituted daily tension offloading treatment on the inferior portion of the incision at postoperative day (POD) 14 till POD 120. 

Assessment on POD 120 revealed the untreated area of the Achilles incision to be hypertrophic and hyperpigmented, while the treated portion was flat with minimal pigmentation changes. 

Thus, it was concluded that the 12-week treatment of tension offloading on an Achilles tendon repair incision greatly enhances cosmesis than the untreated incision.

Source: Abbas DB, Lintel H, Griffin M, et al. Tension offloading improves cutaneous scar formation in Achilles tendon repair. J Surg Case Rep. 2022;2022(3):rjac066.