A combination treatment of cold atmospheric plasma therapy, maggot therapy, and alginate dressing produced notable enhancements in a Wagner grade 4 diabetic foot ulcer that had shown no improvement after six weeks of standard wound care.
A 65-year-old male patient with type 2 diabetes presented with a Wagner grade 4 diabetic foot ulcer on his right foot that was unresponsive to standard wound care.
A multidisciplinary team formulated a four-stage tailored treatment plan for the unresponsive diabetic foot ulcer.
Following eight weeks of the four-stage combination treatment, notable enhancements were observed in the management of the diabetic foot ulcer.
Conventional wound care approaches may not always yield successful healing in diabetic foot ulcers, necessitating alternative methods.
This research describes the treatment of a particularly severe diabetic foot wound (called a Wagner grade 4 ulcer) in a 65-year-old man with type 2 diabetes. The wound had not responded at all to six weeks of standard wound care, which included regular cleaning, removal of dead tissue, and dressings. A team of specialists then designed a new four-part treatment plan combining cold atmospheric plasma therapy (a technology that uses ionized gas to help kill bacteria and promote healing), maggot therapy (using specially raised fly larvae to clean wounds), alginate dressings (seaweed-based wound coverings that absorb fluid and support healing), and close monitoring throughout. After eight weeks of this combined treatment approach, the wound showed notable improvements. This suggests that when standard treatments fail for difficult diabetic foot ulcers, a combination of newer and alternative therapies used together may be able to achieve healing progress that conventional methods alone cannot. It is important to note that this is a single case report involving just one patient, which means the findings cannot be broadly applied to all patients with similar wounds. Case reports are valuable for highlighting potential treatment approaches and generating ideas for future research, but larger studies with many patients would be needed to confirm whether this combination treatment is broadly effective and safe for diabetic foot ulcers.
Faraji N, Goli R, Parizad N, Ghoushchi R, Hassanpour A, Mohammadpour Y. (2026). Treating an unresponsive diabetic foot ulcer with cold atmospheric plasma, maggot therapy and alginate dressing: a case report.. Journal of wound care. https://doi.org/10.12968/jowc.2023.0238