MedWire News: Adjunctive hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) significantly improves healing of diabetic foot ulcers in a dose dependent manner, report researchers.
Previous research has demonstrated that HBOT therapy improves healing of diabetic foot ulcers and reduces the risk for foot amputation, as reported by MedWire News.
In this study, Chin-En Chen (Golden Hospital, Pingtung City, Taiwan, China) and colleagues compared the efficacy of less than 10 HBOT sessions (n=21, 21 infected feet) with more than 10 (22.8 on average) HBOT sessions (n=21, 23 infected feet) for treatment of diabetic foot ulcer in patients aged 67 years on average. Each HBOT session lasted for 2 hours and was carried out at 2.5 atmospheres absolute.
Only patients with grade III (deep ulcer with infection, septic arthritis, or osteomyelitis) and IV (deep ulcer and gangrene in part of the foot) lesions according to the Wagner classification system were included. In addition to HBOT, patients were given appropriate additional care such as surgical debridement, local wound care, and antibiotic treatment. The patients were followed-up for a mean period of 13.3 months.
The researchers found that in the group that had less than 10 HBOT sessions, seven patients achieved a satisfactory degree of wound healing and feet were preserved from amputation in 33.3% of the group.
In comparison, 16 patients with 18 infected feet who had more than 10 HBOT sessions (mean=22.8 sessions) achieved satisfactory wound healing and 78.3% of the group preserved their feet from amputation.
“Adjunctive HBOT has a positive effect on wound healing in conjunction with medical and surgical treatments in patients with infected diabetic foot ulcers,” conclude Chen et al.
They add: “The results in this study seem to indicate that fewer than 10 sessions of HBOT for diabetic foot infection is inadequate.”
Writing in the journal Foot and Ankle Surgery, the authors caution that the sample size and follow-up time for the patients in this study was low and say this should be addressed in future studies.
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Hyperbaric oxygen therapy helps heal diabetic foot ulcers