Comparing the efficacies of alginate, foam, hydrocolloid, hydrofiber, and hydrogel dressings in the management of diabetic foot ulcers and venous leg ulcers: A systematic review and metaanalysis examining how to dress for success

Abstract

Diabetic foot ulcers and venous leg ulcers are chronic wounds frequently encountered by dermatologists. Choosing appropriate wound dressings can effectively promote wound healing and potentially reduce morbidity and financial burden experienced by patients. The objective of our systematic review and meta-analysis was to evaluate wound healing efficacies of synthetic active dressings in diabetic foot ulcer and venous leg ulcer management. For data collection, PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, and clinicaltrials.gov online databases were searched from database inception to 10 May 2015. Fixed and random effects modeling were used to calculate pooled risk ratios for complete ulcer healing from pairwise dressing comparisons. The results of our review showed moderate-quality level evidence that hydrogels were more effective in healing diabetic foot ulcers than basic wound contact dressings (RR 1.80 [95% CI, 1.27-2.56]). The other dressing comparisons showed no statistically significant differences between the interventions examined in terms of achieving complete diabetic foot ulcer healing. Nonadherent dressings were more cost-effective than hydrofiber dressings for diabetic foot ulcers in terms of mean total cost per patient of the dressings themselves. All venous leg ulcer pairwise dressing comparisons showed equivalent dressing efficacies in terms of promoting complete ulcer healing. Overall, most synthetic active dressings and traditional wound dressings are equally efficacious in treating diabetic foot ulcers and venous leg ulcers. For treating diabetic foot ulcers, hydrogels are more efficacious than basic wound contact dressings, and non-adherent dressings are more cost-effective than hydrofiber dressings. Ultimately, dressing choice should be tailored to the wound and the patient.

Selection of Appropriate Wound Dressing for Various Wounds

“…Currently, the selection of the most appropriate treatment is challenging. During this process, multiple types of dressings are applied to the treatment of DFUs (Saco et al, 2016). One such method is the application of various kinds of modern dressings.…”

Multifunctional Nano and Collagen-Based Therapeutic Materials for Skin Repair

“…However, treatments that aim to simultaneously promote endogenous repair while controlling bacterial colonization have been rather unsuccessful. − Further, the variability in wound geometry can make some wounds surgically challenging to treat when using the skin allographs or xerographs currently available on the market . The current body of literature suggests that using hydrogels might confer some additional therapeutic benefits in the treatment of chronic wounds compared to nonadherent dressings . In contrast, despite being permeable to gas and water, hydrogels have proven less effective as a bacterial barrier than, for example, occlusive dressings …”