Kotahitanga 6

Another great read from Kotahitanga. Recurrent cellulitis is common cause of repeat admissions to our ward, especially in our fluid overloaded heart failure patients. Thanks S.Beck for the article!

Compression therapy reduced incidence of cellulitis recurrence in patients with chronic oedema compared to conservative. 40% recurrence in control group vs 15% recurrence in compression group. Also showed reduction in hospital admissions (14% vs 7%) but insufficient data.

Compression is particularly useful to those with chronic leg oedema, recurrent episodes of cellulitis or BMI >33, for which antibiotic prophylaxis is unlikely to benefit. Reduced medium leg volume by -241mls after 15months. Compression is also the primary treatment for lipodermatosclerosis (often misdiagnosed as cellulitis + antibiotics ineffective).