Abstract
“The prevention of ulcer recurrence”.
After obtaining healing of a skin ulcer, preventing its relapse is essential.
The study of the ethiopathogenesis is crucial to define all the subjective and objective elements that have determined the formation of the ulcer in the first place and may influence its recurrence.
In this work we studied 260 patients with skin ulcers.
Of these: 110 had a venous leg ulcer; 65 had a pressure ulcer; 50 had a diabetic foot ulcer; 35 had an arterial leg ulcer.
We excluded rheumatic and neoplastic ulcers and burns from the study, due to the limited possibility of preventing their recurrence.
The study started in JANUARY 2018 and was concluded in JANUARY 2022.
We have followed up all 260 patients, in the clinic and at home, for 4 years. During this period, 44 of them left the study (20 patients died and 24 spontaneously abandoned it.
At the conclusion of the study, only 16 patients (7.3%) had a recurrence of the ulcer, even though we adopted all the procedures to prevent it (Fig. 51.8).
Out of these 16 patients, 10 had Pressure Ulcer, 4 had a Diabetic Foot Ulcer, 1 had a Venous Leg Ulcer and 1 had an Arterial Leg Ulcer.
We therefore concluded that relapses of venous and arterial ulcers have an excellent chance of prevention, while pressure ulcers and those of the diabetic foot are more complicated to prevent.
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Lauletta, V. (2023). The Prevention of Ulcer Recurrence. In: Maruccia, M., Papa, G., Ricci, E., Giudice, G. (eds) Pearls and Pitfalls in Skin Ulcer Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-45453-0_51
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-45453-0_51
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