Dermatologists discover new method for treating diabetic foot ulcers

• A vitamin A compound commonly used to treat acne improves the healing of foot ulcers in patients with diabetes, researchers report in this month's issue of the Archives of Dermatology.
• Previous studies suggesting that topical Retin-A (tretinoin) was helpful in enhancing wound healing in patients with diabetes were small and some results had been conflicting.
• "We wanted to know if tretinoin really helps or not," Dr. Tissa R. Hata of the Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, told Reuters Health.
• The researchers conducted a clinical trial with 24 volunteers who had diabetic foot ulcers but who had no evidence of infection or circulation problems in the extremities.
• The patients were randomly assigned to 4 weeks of daily treatment with topical 0.05 percent tretinoin solution or a saline solution (the control group).
• Wound size was assessed every 2 weeks.
• The 22 patients who completed the study had a total of 24 foot ulcers.
• Two of the 11 ulcers in the control group (18 percent) and 6 of the 13 ulcers in the treated group (46 percent) healed completely at the end of 16 weeks.
• There were no statistically significant adverse events, although some patients experienced mild pain at the ulcer site.
• "We are very pleased with the results.
• We were a bit concerned because tretinoin is very irritating and we thought that the patients would become so irritated that we wouldn't be able to continue the study.
• But actually, that didn't seem to be a problem in most cases," Hata said.
• "We are hoping that diabetic foot clinics will adopt some of this, and use (Retin-A) when some of the other therapies that they are using don't work," she concluded.