Kamilė Račkelytė¹, Laura Adomaitytė¹, Judita Petro¹

¹ Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Academy of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Kaunas, Lithuania

Abstract

Wound healing is a complex process that involves the steps of an inflammatory response, cell differentiation, cell proliferation and tissue repair. Wound healing is delayed and becomes chronic, when these processes are impaired. Chronic wounds can be of various etiologies: vascular (venous or arterial) ulcers, diabetic ulcers and pressure ulcers. The main aim of chronic wound healing is to uncover healthy, well-blooded tissues. In modern medicine, this is done during debridement, where necrotic tissues, serocrust, infected tissues and other factors that stops the healing process are removed from the bottom and edges of the wound. Although there are a number of debridement techniques, the care and treatment of chronic wounds remains a major challenge for patients and wound care professionals. Nowadays, medicine is still looking for innovative treatment methods to help make this process more efficient. One of those methods is ultrasound therapy. High frequency ultrasound has been successfully used in various medical fields for diagnostics, but it has been found that low frequency ultrasound can also be effective in the treatment of chronic wounds.

Keywords: chronic wounds, debridement, low frequency ultrasound.