The clinical effectiveness of haemoglobin spray as adjunctive therapy in the treatment of chronic wounds.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate wound healing after application of adjunctive topical haemoglobin spray in patients with chronic wounds.

METHOD

Consecutive patients with a diversity of chronic wounds (defined as <40% reduction in wound size within 4 weeks) were treated with standard wound care plus haemoglobin spray and evaluated over a 26-week period. Results were compared with a retrospective cohort of 50 consecutive patients treated with standard wound care alone.

RESULTS

We evaluated 50 patients for a 26-week evaluation period, during which 45/50 patients (90%) treated with haemoglobin spray were completely healed compared with 19/50 retrospective control patients (38%) (p<0.001). Mean time to complete wound healing was 6.6 weeks (range: 3-22) in the haemoglobin spray group compared with 11.4 weeks (range: 3-25) in the control group (p=0.01). Cox proportional hazards analysis model adjusting for baseline wound size and months wound present also yielded significant treatment effects. Exudate, slough and pain levels were all reduced to a greater extent versus control group.

CONCLUSION

Haemoglobin spray resulted in a higher number of healed wounds and a faster rate of healing, as well as a positive impact on other wound parameters. These results are in accordance with other published data and supports the adjunctive use of haemoglobin spray in patients with a wide variety of chronic wounds of all sizes and origins.