Table 2.
Wound Healing results associated with selected published maggot therapy studies.
| Pressure ulcer study1 | Diabetic ulcer study2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conventional therapy | MDT | Conventional therapy | MDT | |
| Quality of wound base | ||||
| Initial granulation tissue as % of total area | 31% | 27% | 18 | 19 |
| Granulation tissue at 4 weeks∗+ | 29% | 69% | 15 | 56 |
| Percentage of wounds developing ≥ 50% granulation tissue | 18 | 51 | ||
| Weeks until granulation tissue reached > 50% | 4.7 | 2.1 | ||
| Change in % of granulation tissue per week* | 3.30% | 13% | ||
| Wound size and healing | ||||
| Initial surface area in sq cm* | 14 | 22.1 | 6.3 | 13.3 |
| Change in surface area during treatment (sq cm)∗+ | 6.3 | −7.3 | 5 | −3.8 |
| Change in surface area per weeks∗+ | 1.4 | −1.5 | 1.15 | −0.78 |
| Percentage of wounds which decreased in size within 4 weeks* | 44% | 79% | ||
| Healing rate at 4 weeks∗+ | −0.038 | 0.101 | −0.08 | 0.08 |
| Healing rate at 8 weeks∗+ | −0.027 | 0.096 | −0.02 | 0.07 |
| Percentage of wounds completely healed | 21% | 39% | 21 | 36 |
| Average time to complete healing (weeks) | 13.4 | 12 | 18 | 15 |
1Sherman, 2002 [18] (∗identifies significantly different results between the two arms of this study); 2Sherman, 2003 [19] (+identifies significantly different results between the two arms of this study). The wound healing rate, based on studies by Gilman [69] and Margolis et al. [70], was defined as the change in surface area divided by the mean circumference over time. Study details provided in text.