High mortality in patients with chronic wounds.

摘要

To the Editor: Chronic wounds have become a major public health issue in the United States and abroad. Patients with chronic wounds are often elderly, have cardiovascular disease and other comorbid conditions, and are at additional risk for further complications. This results in additional health care expenditures; for example, the United States alone spends dollar25 billion annually related to chronic wounds and the demand for wound care is increasing. Specifically, diabetic foot ulcer complications have 5-year mortality rates similar to common types of cancer. A recent study from the Netherlands reported patients with diabetes mellitus who had foot ulcers to be at an increased risk for mortality compared with diabetics without foot ulceration (49% mortality over 10 years compared with 35.2% mortality-R 1.49). However, little is known about mortality for patients with other chronic wounds. We evaluated mortality in patients with chronic wounds to understand this better.