HEALTHMedieval remedies undergo a renaissanceMaggot therapy is just one form of old-fashioned medicine finding uses in the 21st century.By Victoria Stagg Elliott, amednews staff. Oct. 7, 2002. Leeches to improve blood flow after surgery. Bee stings to alleviate the symptoms of multiple sclerosis or arthritis. Maggots for bedsores. How is it that these old-fashioned remedies have, for some, found a place in the midst of 21st-century medicine -- the age of stem cells, surgical robots and genetics? It may seem strange, but it appears that some of the very treatments that fell out of favor because of the development of antibiotics and other medical marvels are now coming back into vogue. "Doctors are becoming aware that all this modern stuff we do isn't really cutting it, and we're looking for alternatives," said Edgar Maeyens Jr., MD, a Coos Bay, Ore., dermatologist who uses maggots regularly in his practice. "And society is looking for alternatives." Leeches re-emerged a while ago and now have a well-established role in plastic and reconstructive surgery. Research into a nonbiological substance that mirrors their active ingredient has thus far been unsuccessful. Maggots are being considered more often for treatment of chronic wounds that do not heal. But bee venom is still considered alternative medicine. These age-old preparations are drawing interest and being subjected to scientific rigor. A paper published in the Sept. 9 Archives of Internal Medicine described six patients in Austria with refractory skin ulcers effectively debrided with maggots. A much larger study of patients with chronic wounds in California was published in Wound Repair and Regeneration in August. That paper concluded that maggots did a better job than more conservative therapy for pressure ulcer treatment.
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Copyright 2002 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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