Autoimmune diseases may underlie wounds that don’t heal

Wounds that are slow to heal or do not at all may have an underlying autoimmune disease, according to a new study the finding represents an difficult link that could lead to important new insights in wound healing, say researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center.

The study was sparked by the keen watching of Georgetown rheumatologist Victoria Shanmugam, M.D., who began noticing something rather curious in her patients with autoimmune diseases any open wound they had was very slow to heal.their recovery was even more protracted than in patients through wounds who have diabetes, a disease that is notoriously damaging to blood vessels and to normal skin repair.

So Shanmugam and her colleagues conducted a chart review of people who sought care at a high-volume wound clinic at Georgetown University Hospital to determine the prevalence of autoimmune diseases the study included patients with open wounds regularly leg ulcers who were treated through a three-month period in 2009 of the 340 patients, 49 percent had diabetes, which she says is a typical rate.