Fig. 1.

Flow diagram of chronic wound management. Skin lesions identified as chronic wounds are first classified into three broad categories (grey boxes): venous leg ulcers (VLUs), diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) or pressure ulcers (PUs). Chronic wounds are then refined into sub-categories based on their suspected aetiology (blue boxes). All wounds are initially assumed to be ‘easy’ to treat and receive the appropriate care such as ‘offloading’, antibiotics or surgery. Subsequently, if healing fails, wounds receive progressively more aggressive treatment, including debridement and biological intervention. If all other treatment fails, the final resort is to amputate the affected appendage or limb.