Hyperbaric Therapy for Leg Ulcers

Leg ulcers are areas of damaged or infected skin on the leg or ankle caused by problems with blood flow to veins or arteries, or by chronic conditions such as diabetes or kidney disease. Understanding the use of hyperbaric therapy for leg ulcers involves seeing how hyperbaric therapy works and evaluating its use on leg ulcers.

What It Is and How It Works

• Hyperbaric therapy is a special treatment in which a patient lies in an enclosed chamber where hyper-pressurized pure oxygen flows. Hyperbaric therapy works on wounds like leg ulcers because the damaged skin isn't carrying enough oxygen to tissues--and exposure to pressurized pure oxygen dramatically increases the amount of oxygen in the blood and the amount exposed to the wound. This allows for faster healing and regeneration of new tissue. Treatment can range from an hour to several hours, multiple times per week, depending on the nature of the injury and the extend of the damage to tissues.

  Because hyperbaric oxygen therapy requires a special pressurized chamber, it is not available in every hospital--some smaller community hospitals may not have a pressure chamber. Larger teaching hospitals or community hospitals, as well as large stand-alone clinics and big-group practices, will offer hyperbaric therapy for leg ulcers.

Effectiveness and Approval

• Although doctors use hyperbaric therapy to treat a wide variety of conditions, including leg ulcers, the Food and Drug Administration has only approved its use for 13 conditions. Leg ulcers are not part of this list, so most doctors use the treatment "off-label," a common practice in medicine--but this could affect whether insurance pays for the treatment. Journal articles and research studies ranging from those sponsored by large private clinics to teaching hospitals to the National Institutes of Health have demonstrated hyperbaric therapy's effectiveness in healing wounds, especially arterial and venous leg ulcers.