Lower extremity
ulcers in patients with
diabetes mellitus may take a long time to heal despite the use of advanced topical
therapies. A retrospective review of cases was conducted to assess the use of a dehydrated amniotic membrane allograft (DAMA) in a convenience sample of 9
wounds in 8 patients (5
men, 3 women, average age 62 years [range 31-81 years]) with
diabetes mellitus and/or
vascular disease.
Wound data and patient characteristics were abstracted from medical records. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data. In 5 of 9
wounds, DAMA was applied after a failure to demonstrate a 50% reduction in area after 4 weeks of treatment with advanced
wound care, offloading, and compression as indicated. In 4
wounds, DAMA was applied 2-4 weeks after presentation because of concerns about existing patient risk factors for nonhealing.
Wounds were present for an average of 11 weeks (range 1-35 weeks) before application of DAMA. Mean baseline
wound area and volume were 3.11 cm2 (± 3.73) and 0.55 cm3 (± 0.58), respectively. All
wounds healed in an average of 5.7 (± 2.9) weeks (range: 1-9 weeks) after a mean of 2.7 applications (± 1.7) (range 1-5 applications). No adverse events occurred. These observations suggest prospective, randomized, controlled clinical studies to compare the use of DAMA to other topical treatment modalities are warranted.