Leg ulcers: a clinical epidemiological analysis of cases treated at Hospital das Clínicas FMRP-USP between January 2012 and December 2016

Abstract

Leg ulcers can be defined as areas of loss of epidermal and dermal integrity leading to adjacent tissues. The chronification of such lesions is related to systemic factors, such as chronic venous insufficiency, diabetes mellitus and arterial hypertension, frequent comorbidities in the elderly population. For presenting several etiologies (Venous, arterial, diabetic, neuropathic, leprosy, anemic ulcers, among others) there is a diagnostic difficulty in clinical practice and consequently treatment and guidelines that lead to its delay recovering. The main objective of the study is to carry out a clinical-epidemiological analysis of cases attended at the HCFMRP-USP Neurovascular Ulcers Outpatient Clinic (ADUN) between 2012 and 2016, correlating their etiologies with laboratory tests useful to the diagnosis in addition to the established therapeutics and their evolution. The medical records of the patients will be analyzed from which data will be collected regarding identification, comorbidities, medicines, characterization of leg ulcers, adopted laboratory tests used for the diagnosis and treatment, among others. Such data shall be a specific platform created from Epi Info 7 " software, which will allow an exploratory analysis and descriptive statistics based on the frequency of the encounter of the variables, besides their correlations. It is expected, through work, to identify the population at risk, the most prevalent etiologies of leg ulcers in the tertiary care, the most sensitive tests for diagnostic confirmation and the best treatments, in order to improve the care of these patients, healing their chronic cutaneous ulcers and consequently to recover their lost quality of life. (AU)