Lymphedema therapy and wound healing: a retrospective analysis of pretreatment and posttreatment wound volume

Venous leg ulcers (VLUs) frequently exhibit prolonged healing times, particularly in the presence of lower extremity lymphedema. One approach to managing VLU is to combine traditional wound care with lymphedema therapy (LT). Despite recognition of compression as an effective agent for management of chronic wounds, use of lymphedema services remains insufficient among health care providers.

To investigate the effectiveness of LT for tissue repair and examine the effect of various factors on wound healing.

Electronic medical records of patients with VLU who completed LT between June 2016 and March 2020 were reviewed. Wound volume (length × width × depth) was compared before and after LT, and medians of nonnormally distributed data were compared via the Wilcoxon signed rank test. Demographic characteristics and medical history were evaluated to determine their relationship to VLU healing. A 3-step hierarchical approach was used to investigate the effect of various factors on predicting tissue repair.

A total of 178 wounds in 115 patients were included in the analysis. The average wound volume before LT was 14.4 cm³. After lymphedema intervention, the mean wound volume decreased to 3.8 cm³, a significant reduction in wound size (P < .001). A hierarchical regression model revealed no statistically significant relationships between wound closure and age, sex, comorbidities, or treatment-related factors. However, body mass index emerged as a moderately significant predictor of wound healing (P = .013).

The findings support the effectiveness of LT for healing chronic VLU in patients with lymphedema treated in an outpatient clinic.