VenUS II: a randomised controlled trial of larval therapy in the management of leg ulcers

Abstract

EA Nelson and DJ Torgerson on behalf of the VenUS II teamHow to obtain copies of this and other HTA programme reports An electronic version of this publication, in Adobe Acrobat format, is available for downloading free of charge for personal use from the HTA website (www.hta.ac.uk). A fully searchable CD-ROM is also available (see below).Printed copies of HTA monographs cost £20 each (post and packing free in the UK) to both public and private sector purchasers from our Despatch Agents.Non-UK purchasers will have to pay a small fee for post and packing. For European countries the cost is £2 per monograph and for the rest of the world £3 per monograph.You can order HTA monographs from our Despatch Agents:-fax (with credit card or official purchase order) -post (with credit card or official purchase order or cheque) -phone during office hours (credit card only).Additionally the HTA website allows you either to pay securely by credit card or to print out your order and then post or fax it. Contact details are as follows: Payment methods Paying by chequeIf you pay by cheque, the cheque must be in pounds sterling, made payable to Direct Mail Works Ltd and drawn on a bank with a UK address. Paying by credit cardThe following cards are accepted by phone, fax, post or via the website ordering pages: Delta, Eurocard, Mastercard, Solo, Switch and Visa. We advise against sending credit card details in a plain email. Paying by official purchase orderYou can post or fax these, but they must be from public bodies (i.e. NHS or universities) within the UK. We cannot at present accept purchase orders from commercial companies or from outside the UK. How do I get a copy of HTA on CD?Please use the form on the HTA website (www.hta.ac.uk/htacd.htm). Or contact Direct Mail Works (see contact details above) by email, post, fax or phone. HTA on CD is currently free of charge worldwide.The website also provides information about the HTA programme and lists the membership of the various committees. HTA NIHR Health Technology Assessment programmeT he Health Technology Assessment (HTA) programme, part of the National Institute for HealthResearch (NIHR), was set up in 1993. It produces high-quality research information on the effectiveness, costs and broader impact of health technologies for those who use, manage and provide care in the NHS. 'Health technologies' are broadly defined as all interventions used to promote health, prevent and treat disease, and improve rehabilitation and long-term care. The research findings from the HTA programme directly influence decision-making bodies such as the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the National Screening Committee (NSC). HTA findings also help to improve the quality of clinical practice in the NHS indirectly in that they form a key component of the 'National Knowledge Service'. The HTA programme is needs led in that it fills gaps in the evidence needed by the NHS. There are three routes to the start of projects. First is the commissioned route. Suggestions f...

Maggot debridement therapy: the current perspectives

“…Dumville et al in the UK in 2009 conducted the largest RCT. 25 They included 267 venous or mixed venous arterial ulcers that were treated either with MDT (free living or loose larvae) or hydrogel, and followed up for 12 months in a three-armed trial. They concluded that "Larval therapy did not improve the rate of healing of sloughy or necrotic leg ulcers or reduce bacterial load compared with hydrogel but did significantly reduce the time to debridement and increased ulcer pain."…”

Evidence‐based topical management of chronic wounds according to the T.I.M.E. principle

“…No significant differences were seen in the bacterial burden and in the rate of MRSA colonization in the different study groups [34]. …”

“…Medical maggots of the common green bottle fly (Lucilia sericata) are used as free-range or contained in biobags of polyvinyl material. With respect to efficacy of free-range versus biobags the data are controversial at present [32][33][34]. The maggot secretions (leucine aminopeptidases, collagenases, among others) lyse necrotic tissue while sparing vital tissue.…”

VenUS III: a randomised controlled trial of therapeutic ultrasound in the management of venous leg ulcers

“…7,61 There was no evidence of a difference in recurrence of healed ulcers and few people had a recurrence within trial follow-up.…”

“…61 Taking the time to healing as an example, in this IPW approach only participants with observed time to healing data contribute with non-zero terms, but their contributions are inversely weighted by the probability of being observed. 61 Consequently, individuals who are less likely to be observed are weighted most heavily. The censoring distribution was estimated through the Kaplan-Meier estimator.…”