Wound Cleaning Research Paper

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Maggot Therapy for Wound Cleaning For centuries, sterile larvae of the green bottle fly, Lucilia sericata, have proven useful in the medical field. Maggots feed off of dead tissue and excrete powerful alkaline enzymes while doing so; medical-grade, sterile maggots can be placed on open wounds to eradicate any existing bacteria and decomposing tissue, leaving behind clean flesh (Čeřovský et al., 2014). Approximately two hundreds maggots consume up to fifteen grams of bacteria and dead tissue every day (Wollina et al., 2000). The elimination of the bacteria creates a healthy environment for new tissue to develop (Gottrup and Jørgense, 2011). First used by Mayan practitioners and later used by war doctors, these fly larvae acted as modern-day…show more content…
Warzone surgeons began noticing that their patients who had become infested with maggots had faster healing rates, higher survival rates, and lessened risks of amputations. The United States Food and Drug Administration granted the marketing of maggots for certain medical situations in 2004 and more than forty thousand maggot therapy treatments are performed throughout the world each year (Dewey, 2013). However, as of 2000, only approximately fifty health centers in North America were utilizing larval therapy (Sherman et al, 2000) and there was only one FDA-approved medicinal maggot supplier in North America as of 2009 (Twedell, 2009). These insect larvae are a much more affordable alternative to antibiotics, showing to be a fraction of the cost of conventional treatment methods; according to Sarah Styles, a nurse who has been using maggot therapy for over three years on her own patients, estimated that a wound costs £2,225 (approximately $2867.64) to fully debride, while the maggots cost only £200 ($257.77). As well as being cheaper, they also work much faster; conventional dressings took an average of eighty-nine days to debride and clean a wound, compared to an average of five days

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