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Wound Care Articles and Insights
June 21, 2022

Venous Ulcers By The Numbers

Kallie Christensen

Sources:

Venous leg ulcers (VLUs) are the most common type of ulcers found on the leg. They account for up to 90% of lower leg ulcers:

Adeyi, Adeyemi, et al. “Leg Ulcers in Older People: A Review of Management.” British Journal of Medical Practitioners, vol. 2, no. 3, Sept. 2009, pp. 21–28., www.bjmp.org/content/leg-ulcers-older-people-review-management.

Approximately 600,000 individuals develop a VLU annually:

Abbade, Luciana P Fernandes, and Sidnei Lastória. “Venous ulcer: epidemiology, physiopathology, diagnosis and treatment.” International journal of dermatology vol. 44,6 (2005): 449-56. doi:10.1111/j.1365-4632.2004.02456.x

30% of venous leg ulcers remain unhealed after a 24 week period:

Guest, M et al. “Venous ulcer healing by four-layer compression bandaging is not influenced by the pattern of venous incompetence.” The British journal of surgery vol. 86,11 (1999): 1437-40. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2168.1999.01288.x

In the US, venous leg ulcers cost the health system around 2.5 billion:

Sen, Chandan K. “Human Wounds and Its Burden: An Updated Compendium of Estimates.” Advances in Wound Care, vol. 8, no. 2, Feb. 2019, pp. 39–48, doi:10.1089/wound.2019.0946.

An average of 2 million working days are lost every year because of venous leg ulcers:

Fishman T. How to manage venous stasis ulcers. Podiatry Today. 2007;20:66–72.

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