Diagnosis and Management of Intravenous Drug Users' Chronic Wounds: A Case Series Collection of a Single Center.

Background

Intravenous drug users (IVDUs) represent a very small group of patients affected by chronic wounds (CWs).

Objectives

To assess the risk factors for CWs in IVDUs, to improve their treatment.

Methods

A retrospective review of 7 IVDUs with CWs was performed at the Dermatology of the University of Bologna.

Results

A history of 10 years of the most frequent injection was heroin in the gaiter area. The most observed comorbidities were HIV, HCV and HBV. They were treated most with an alginate with silver dressing with an average follow-up of 2.8 years.

Conclusions

We would like to highlight the importance of clinical history in this type of patients and that in our experience specialized skin wounds risk assessment and management could be useful, aside from traditional compression therapy.