ABSTRACT
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) has been used to treat refractory wounds for the last several decades, with the majority of research focusing on wounds secondary to arterial insufficiency. We describe 2 patients with scleroderma with intractable bilateral extremity ulcers. Local ischemia was identified using transcutaneous oximetry. Each patient then underwent 30 treatments of HBOT at a relative depth of 2.4 ATA with resulting wound healing. This is the first reported successful use of HBOT to treat scleroderma ulcers, and may represent an unrecognized treatment option for these notoriously difficult chronic wounds.
Subject(s)
Hyperbaric Oxygenation , Scleroderma, Diffuse/therapy , Scleroderma, Limited/therapy , Skin Ulcer/therapy , Wound Healing , Adult , Blood Gas Monitoring, Transcutaneous , Female , Humans , Ischemia/etiology , Ischemia/pathology , Male , Scleroderma, Diffuse/blood , Scleroderma, Diffuse/complications , Scleroderma, Limited/blood , Scleroderma, Limited/complications , Skin Ulcer/etiology , Skin Ulcer/pathology , Treatment OutcomeABSTRACT
The subject of microbial growth within the saline medium of prosthetic breast implants has been one of great controversy in recent years. Although several articles have described microbial growth within the tissue surrounding implanted breast prostheses, few have attempted to determine the possibility of such contamination of the luminal saline. The authors studied the intraluminal saline medium of a series of explanted breast prostheses with the objective of identifying any microbial contamination. Over a 6-month period, a consecutive series of saline-filled breast implants and tissue expanders were removed from 37 patients. Under the supervision of a microbiologist, saline extracted from each implant was subjected to bacterial and fungal cultures, Gram staining, and acid-fast staining. A total of 24 saline-filled breast implants were removed from 15 patients, and 32 saline-filled tissue expanders were removed from 22 patients. The average length of implantation was 28.1 months for the implants and 7.1 months for the expanders. None of the saline within the implants or expanders within our series displayed any evidence of microbial contamination. These results suggest that microbial contamination of the luminal saline of prosthetic breast implants is an extremely unlikely event.
