Chronic venous leg ulcers (CVLUs) affect 1%-3% of adults. Standard compression therapy achieves healing in only 40%-70% of cases at 24 weeks. Evidence for hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) therapy remains controversial, with limited sham-controlled trials. To evaluate whether adjunctive HBO improves healing of refractory CVLUs compared to standard care alone. Single-centre, open-label randomised trial of 80 adults with CVLUs that persisted > 3 months despite standard care (defined as 2 increased from 26.1 ± 6.3 to 150.3 ± 45.6 mmHg in HBO group (p 2. However, the open-label design and single-centre setting limit confidence in these findings. Sham-controlled multicentre trials with longer follow-up are needed before recommending routine use.
Nikolić et al. (Sun,) studied this question.