Continuous Topical Oxygen Therapy Supports Wound Healing in Patients of Advanced Age Following Mohs Surgery

Dr. Windy Cole shares background and insights from her paper, “Management of Late Radiation Tissue Injury Ulcers with Continuous Topical Oxygen Therapy Supports Wound Healing in Patients of Advanced Age Following Mohs Surgery: A Case Series.” Read the full paper here.

Transcript

Windy Cole, DPM CWSP:

Hello, I'm Dr. Windy Cole. I'm the Director of Wound Care Research at Kent State University College of Podiatric Medicine, and I'm here to discuss my recent publication where we look at the use of continuous topical oxygen therapy in 3 patients that had late radiation tissue necrosis following Mohs surgery for different types of carcinoma of the lower extremity.

So there's an old adage that things come in 3s, and that's exactly what happened with this case series. Three patients of advanced age, one patient 85 years of age, another 93 years of age, and the third was 91 years of age, presented with very similar presentations, all had carcinoma of the lower extremity. Two suffered with squamous cell carcinoma, one had a basal cell carcinoma. They all had undergone radiation tissue therapy for the carcinoma and followed by Mohs surgery. And all 3 of these patients with advanced age developed non-healing wounds. They all had tried and failed multiple different advanced wound care therapies, but the wounds were not progressing, and patients also had a considerable amount of pain. So it was determined, because there is no great gold standard for these types of chronic wounds, that the incorporation of topical oxygen therapy might help to support wound healing and also decrease pain in these patients.

Well, these are unique presentations, and the fact that we had 3 present with, again, similar presentations in a very short period of time was very interesting. It was a gift, I think, and I believe that looking for alternative therapeutic methods to support wound healing and also manage patient pain, especially in the elderly population, is a gap that we need to fill in the wound management space. So investigating the effects and utility of topical oxygen therapy in these patients, I think gives us at least another treatment pathway for patients with these atypical presentations or odd presentations that we otherwise had not investigated.

Yes, all of these patients, again, had ulcerations at least a year and sometimes several years. With the utilization of topical oxygen therapy, these wounds healed in a very quick manner. I think the longest took 5 weeks to go on to complete wound healing. The other thing that I think was shocking or impressive is that almost immediately in all cases where patients had significant pain, their pain levels reduced within a few hours or a few days of applying the topical oxygen therapy.

This is a small case series, right? Three patients. So it gives us an idea of the potential of use of topical oxygen therapy in patient cases like this. It would be great to have a broader subject population to study such therapies on. I think as we move forward, and we're looking for alternative therapeutic methods in both support of wound healing and pain management, hopefully other providers will also utilize technology such as this, and we'll get continued feedback.