Managing real world venous leg ulcers with fetal bovine acellular dermal matrix: a single centre retrospective study

OBJECTIVE: As compression treatment offers moderate improvement, especially to recurrent venous leg ulcers (VLUs), several alternative therapies using cellular based and/or tissue-derived products (CTPs) have emerged from bovine, porcine, and equine sources. Our aim was to look at the effect of a CTP in 'real-life' VLUs. METHODS: This study looked at complex patients with chronic, large wounds in a single-centre retrospective review. All patients were treated with fetal bovine acellular dermal matrix (FBADM) for VLUs at our outpatient urban wound care programme. RESULTS: A total of 40 wounds in 33 patients were analysed. At week four, 6% of wounds were closed; at week eight, 9% were closed; at week 12, 25% were closed; and at week 16, 38% of wounds were closed. The median time to wound closure was 67 days (range: 23-100 days) and the median percent wound closure through re-epithelialisation was 11% per week (range: 7-30% per week). At 4 weeks the median area reduction of all wounds was 23.5%, with 40% of VLUs having a ≥40% area reduction at the same point in time. CONCLUSION: There are limitations to any retrospective review; however; patients deemed to have a limited chance of closure at 4 months did better than expected, either healing or having a wound area reduction at 16 weeks, making their wound care much easier. Prospective studies should be conducted to optimise the treatment algorithm to determine if better clinical outcomes can be obtained for the 'real-life' VLU population.