Chronic Venous Leg Ulcers
A Narrative Review
Keywords:
Venous, Ulcer, Chronic, ManagementAbstract
Background: Chronic venous leg ulcers are known to be very common and debilitating. Treatment is arduous and recurrence rates are high. The prevalence of chronic venous disease (CVD), especially leg ulcers, rises with age. Slow healing and recurrence continue to weigh down the patients. There is a great need to understand the aetio-pathogenesis and eliminate the recurrence of the pathological processes leading to chronic venous leg ulcers. This review therefore, aims at enlightening the medical community by harnessing available literature and knowledge of chronic venous disease with a view to improving prognosis and decreasing recurrence especially of chronic venous leg ulcers.
Methods: Materials were sourced from available publications and internet search of Google scholar, Pubmed and Hinari. Only full articles were included.
Results: The prevalence of chronic venous leg ulcers increases with age, even though it is not restricted to the elderly and it is commoner in women. Chronic venous leg ulcers are most commonly caused by venous hypertension and valvular incompetence. Results improve drastically with early presentation and recurrence rates decrease with better compliance with treatment modalities.
Conclusion: Chronic venous leg ulcers remain a great source of concern to clinicians and patients. To improve treatment outcomes and reduce recurrence rates, appropriate diagnosis and a combination of measures to prevent or reduce recurrence should be instituted. In spite of all options for the management of chronic venous leg ulcer, the age long method of graduated compression bandaging still appears to be a very effective and reliable method and so should be maintained.
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