Research on wound care therapy tends to be poor and reveals few insights for new treatment options, according to Johns Hopkins researchers.
The lead investigators enlisted a panel of wound care experts to review published papers on treatments for chronic venous leg ulcers. Most relevant studies were of poor quality, and findings were inconclusive about the effectiveness of antibiotics and surgical treatments, they discovered.
The research review team began by identifying 10,066 citations that were possibly related to wound care. They found that only 66 of these papers specifically addressed their questions about the effectiveness of treatments for chronic venous leg ulcers.
For the study, the investigators analyzed clinical outcomes involving wound dressings, antibiotics and venous surgery.
Wound dressings that involve living human cells may improve healing, and cadexomer iodine and collagen also have been shown to improve outcomes. But there is still not enough evidence to say which potential treatments are best, noted Gerald Lazarus, M.D., founder of the Johns Hopkins Wound Healing Center.
“There is a critical need for well-designed research studies to compare the current minimally invasive surgical interventions to the gold standard of care, compression therapy,” he said.
From the February 01, 2014 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
