Comparisons of negative pressure wound therapy and ultrasonic debridement for diabetic foot ulcers: a network meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: a network meta-analysis was performed to compare the strength and weakness of negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) with ultrasound debridement (UD) as for diabetic foot ulcers (DFU).

METHODS: PubMed, Ovid EMBASE, Web of Science, Cochrane library databases, and Chinese Biomedical Literature Database were searched till February 2015. Clinical compared studies of negative pressure wound therapy and ultrasound debridement were enrolled. The primary efficacy outcomes included healed ulcers, reduction of ulcer areas and time to closure. Secondary amputation including major and minor amputations was used to assess the safety profile.

RESULTS: Out of 715 studies, 32 were selected which enrolled 2880 diabetic patients. The pooled analysis revealed that NPWT including vacuum assisted closure (VAC) and vacuum sealing drainage (VSD) were as efficacious as ultrasound debridement improving healed ulcers, odds ratio, 0.86; 95% CI 0.28 to 2.6 and 1.2; 95% CI 0.38 to 4, respectively. However, both were better to standard wound care in wound healing patients. Compared with the standard wound care treated diabetic foot ulcers, NPWT and UD resulted in a significantly superior efficacy in time to wound closure and decrement in area of wound. No significances were observed between NPWT and UD groups in both indicators. Fewer patients tended to receive amputation in NPWT and UD groups compared to standard wound care group.

CONCLUSIONS: The results of the network meta-analysis indicated that negative pressure wound therapy was similar to ultrasound debridement for diabetic foot ulcers, but better than standard wound care both in efficacy and safety profile.