[Venous ulcers. Multilayer compression system or crepe bandage? Comparative study on effectiveness, cost, and impact on quality of life]

Abstract

Treatment for varicose ulcers is based on treating an ulcer as a chronic injury and its primary cause, hypertension in the veins, by means of a system of decreasing and sustained high compression. In Spain patients suffering from varicose ulcers are treated mainly with systems based on the use of crepe bandages which have a low compression effectiveness. In order to bring to light information on this important facet of health care and to generate evidence on this topic, the authors present a comparative study of a standard therapy method utilizing compression on patients suffering from varicose ulcers in Spain, a crepe bandage, against the use of a Profore multi-layer system. The authors studied 30 varicose ulcers on 24 patients who met the criteria to be included in this study; 17 of these, 70.8%, in women and 7, 29.2%, in men. The average treatment period of these lesions with crepe bandages on these lesions was 1045 +/- 2370 (DS) days (mean of 120). At the start of treatment with the multi-layer system, the average lesion surface area reached 10.64 +/- 9.45 (DS) cm2 (mean 7.28). After treatment with this multi-layer system, all these lesions cicatrized entirely. In order for this to happen, an average of 43.73 +/- 27.38 (DS), (mean 34) was required. Based on our results, we can state that the use of the multi-layer system in this study compared to a crepe bandage allowed for the reduction in cicatrisation time, in the number of bandage changes, in the number of visits, in the professional time needed, and reduced by a factor of 20 the cost of the material involved.