[First manifestation of leg ulcers : Analysis of data from 1000 patients]

More than 1 million people in Germany suffer from leg ulcers. The diagnosis leg ulcer summarizes many different etiologies. The therapy of leg ulcers is an interdisciplinary and interprofessional challenge. Early identification of the cause of the leg ulcer and initiation of a causal therapy are essential for healing.

The aim of this study was to investigate the initial manifestation age of patients with causally associated leg ulcers. Afterwards we calculated the most common etiologies according to decade.

A prospective database at the University Hospital Essen, dermatological wound care center, was used to identify patients with chronic leg ulcers between 2002 and 2014. Clinical data of 1000 patients with chronic leg ulcers were analyzed in this monocentric study.

A total of 29 different etiologies were differentiated. Approximately 70% of etiologies were of vascular origin, while 30% were rare causes. The count of different etiologies showed significant differences related to the onset and the occurrence in individual decades of life. In particular, nonvascular etiologies such as pyoderma gangrenosum or necrobiosis lipoidica are relatively more common in younger patients than in the aged.

Based on the findings of our study, it is possible to limit the underlying etiology on the basis of the age of first manifestation of the leg ulcer in order to make targeted diagnostics more effective. Thus, this information can help to optimize scarce time resources in daily practice and improve the prediction probability of leg ulcers.