Efficiency of topical ozone treatment in patients of old diabetes with diabetic ulcers of lower limbs.

A study was held at the Division of Plastic and reconstructive Surgery, Banai-Zon Medical Center, Haifa to assess the efficiency of topical ozone treatment along with other conventionally used treatment modalities in patients of old diabetes with diabetic ulcers of lower limbs.

For the sake of this study, 183 diabetic patients with lower limb diabetic ulcers were given topical ozone treatment along with their normal conventional treatments and were followed over a period of 4 years to see if there would be any benefit in adding ozone therapy to the conventional treatments.

Treatment that patients received:

• Topical and systemic antibiotics.
• Periodic wound cleaning.
• Changing dressings when needed.
• Topical Ozone application. 3 x per week
• Taking wound cultures for detection of bacterial infections.

Results:

• Prior to the usage of topical ozone as treatment, the average healing time of the wound was 14.1 months which after the treatment became only 49 days or 1.5 months.
• Out of all the patients that were followed, 84.8% were fully healed.
• Remaining patients were either discontinued from the trials;skins grafted or were diagnosed as non-responsive patients.
• A very small number of patients (4.3%) had to undergo limb amputation.

This study concluded that when topical ozone is used along with other modalities of treatment for diabetic ulcers of lower limbs is very beneficial.

This study concluded that when ozone was added to the normal conventional protocol, the wounds healed 9.5 times faster then without ozone topical treatment. This is the measurable what is the most important part of all