Early Adoption of Collagen/ORC Therapies Improves Clinical Outcome

Introduction: This prospective multi-centre cohort study of venous leg ulcers was designed to investigate prognostic factors predictive of response to collagen/ORC and collagen/ORC/silver treatment. Methods: Venous leg ulcers were randomised on a 1:1 basis to receive either collagen/ORC or collagen/ORC/silver treatment. Wounds were treated for up to 12 weeks and measured on a weekly basis. In this study we used 2 outcome measures; healing (wounds that healed in 12 weeks) and improving (wounds that reduced in area by at least 50% in 12 weeks). A logistic regression model was applied to the data to assess the baseline factors which may be predictive of healing response. Results: 64 patients entered into the study, 8 were excluded due to deviations from the study protocol, and therefore 56 patients were included in the final analysis. Within this population 62.5% of the patients were found to have improved with Collagen/ORC and Collagen/ORC/Silver therapies. The logistic regression model also showed that ulcer duration prior to entering the study was a highly significant factor in predicting response to treatment (p>0.005). The overall healing rate was 46%, however this increased to 70% by only including data for wounds of less than 6 months duration. Similarly, while 62.5% of wounds improved in the study, this increased to 87% in wounds less than 6 months, 88% in wounds under 1 year duration and 73% in wounds less than 2 years old. Thus, when the population was stratified by wound duration it was found that wound age significantly affected overall effectiveness of the therapy. The younger the wound the better the chance of success and older wounds (greater than 2 years old) are much harder to progress to a healing trajectory. Conclusion: This study has shown that early treatment of chronic wounds with Collagen/ORC or Collagen/ORC/Silver leads to increased rates of healing. In the first 6 months of a wound, its ability to heal is greatest with the healing rate with advanced treatments such as Collagen/ORC or Collagen/ORC/Silver as high as 70%. This study has highlighted the need for early adoption of advanced therapies such as Collagen/ORC and Collagen/ORC/Silver to improve clinical outcomes.  To investigate the prognostic factors predictive of response to collagen/ORC and collagen/ORC/silver treatment  To maximise efficacy of collagen/ORC therapies by promoting the appropriate use of these treatments