Eat and heal. Past, present and future of maggot debridement therapy: a narrative review

In medicine, fly larvae play a dual role: they can be both harmful causative agents of diseases and therapeutic agents. In fact maggot debridement therapy (biosurgery) is the controlled use of larvae to treat infected wounds and dates back to the beginnings of medicine. Ambroise Paré and Dominique-Jean Larrey pioneered the field of biosurgery before the 19th century, but it was John Forney Zacharias during the American Civil War who officially documented and promoted this medical application. The success of this method was immediate. Nevertheless, germ theory and the postulates of Robert Koch discouraged physicians from using potentially contaminated material such as larvae from the second half of the 19th century onwards. In the first half of the 20th century, however, the practice regained momentum thanks to the sterilization of fly eggs and the success of Dr. Stanton K. Livingston in the treatment of chronic osteomyelitis with biotherapy. The use of larvae for therapeutic purposes was discontinued after the Second World War due to the discovery of penicillin and is now receiving some attention again due to the emergence of antibiotic- resistant bacteria. Although biosurgery is rarely encouraged, the results of systematic reviews and meta- analyzes support its use. Previous and current evidence shows that this practice may be as useful as ever in the age of antibiotic resistance. It is likely that larval therapy will be considered as a stand-alone tool in the near future.