Authors: Golledge J, Singh TP
Publication: Diabetic medicine
Year: 2019
Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31002414

AIM:

To examine the efficacy of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in healing diabetes-related lower limb ulcers through a meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials.

METHODS:

A literature search was conducted to identify appropriate clinical trials. Inclusion required randomized study design and reporting of the proportion of diabetes-related lower limb ulcers that healed. A meta-analysis was performed to examine the effect of hyperbaric oxygen therapy on ulcer healing. The secondary outcomes were minor and major amputations.

RESULTS:

Nine randomized trials involving 585 participants were included. People allocated to hyperbaric oxygen therapy were more likely to have complete ulcer healing (relative risk 1.95, 95% CI 1.51-2.52; P<0.001), and less likely to require major (relative risk 0.54, 95% CI 0.36-0.81; P=0.003) or minor (relative risk 0.68, 95% CI 0.48-0.98; P=0.040) amputations than control groups. Sensitivity analyses suggested the findings were dependent on the inclusion of one trial. Adverse events included ear barotrauma and a seizure. Many of the trials were noted to have methodological weaknesses including absence of blinding of outcome assessors, lack of a justifiable sample size calculation and limited follow-up.

CONCLUSIONS:

This meta-analysis suggests hyperbaric oxygen therapy improves the healing of diabetes-related lower limb ulcers and reduces the requirement for amputation. Confidence in these results is limited by significant design weaknesses of previous trials and inconsistent findings. A more rigorous assessment of the efficacy of hyperbaric the efficacy of hyperbaric oxygen therapy is needed.

• Listing ID: 6675
• Author/s: Golledge J, Singh TP
• Publication: Diabetic medicine
• Year: 2019
• Volume: 36
• Issue: 7
• Start Page: 813