Chronic, non-healing wounds call for comprehensive care

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Chronic wounds are a major challenge in medicine. They quadruple the chances of dying within the next year. But doctors do have many tools now to save lives.

For years, Sherman Dudley struggled with blood clots. Intially they were just under the skin surface in his leg.

Medication started to heal it.

"Because I start feeling better, I stopped taking the medicine. You know, I was younger," he says.

Years later, they developed deep in his legs and then in his lung.

"I almost died," he says.

Surgery cleared clots from the lung, but couldn't clear his lower leg.

The reduced circulation and diabetes led to skin ulcers, sending Dudley to Dr. Kenny Oh of Temple Health for advanced wound care.

Dr. Oh says wounds need meticulous care from day one.

"No time is too early to get another set of eyes on it, to get a different perspective, to get additional suggestions," he says.

And it takes a multidisciplinary approach.

"Not just vascular surgeons there, it's general surgeons, physical medicine, rehabilitation doctors, podiatrists and other specialists," he says.

Within Medicare alone, chronic wounds affect eight million people, at a cost of more than $30 billion a year.

Diabetics like Dudley are especially vulnerable.

"First and foremost, it affects the sensation in the feet, for example, so people may develop a wound and not even realize it," Dr. Oh says.

Diabetes also damages tiny blood vessels.

"Some of the nutrients don't have an optimal way to get down to the foot to aid in the healing process," he adds.

Temple's Wound Care Center uses many tools, like hyperbaric oxygen treatment, which delivers high-pressure pure oxygen.

Dudley was also treated with a wound vac system to draw out excess fluid. And he's received a successful skin graft.

Dr. Oh says grafts and skin substitutes are a fast-growing part of wound care.

"Having a variety of options is useful because we see different types of wounds, and it's not a one-size-fits-all approach," he says.

Dudley says that over 20 years, the wound center has really cared about him.

"To have a doctor who is always looking at the new technology, trying to find ways to help me really just makes me feel comforted," he says.

Dudley has been so happy with the care, his sister has also become a patient of the advanced wound care program.

Although the advanced wound care center is at Temple's Episcopal Campus, the treatments are available throughout Temple Health.