Summary
A Cochrane systematic review of alginate dressings for venous leg ulcers. It brings together trials comparing alginates with other dressings and examines the wound-healing outcomes reported in those studies.
- Study type
- Systematic review
- Study size
- 5 randomised controlled trials, 295 participants in total
Trials compared different alginate brands (1 trial, 20 participants), alginate with hydrocolloid (3 trials, 215 participants) and alginate with plain non-adherent dressings (1 trial, 60 participants), with 6 or 12 weeks’ follow-up.
Key findings
- No statistically significant differences between groups were found for any comparison or healing outcome.
- Pooling two trials (84 participants) comparing alginate with hydrocolloid for complete healing at six weeks gave a risk ratio of 0.42 (95% CI 0.14 to 1.21).
- Adverse events were generally similar between groups (not assessed for alginate versus plain non-adherent dressings).
- Risk of bias was high in two trials and unclear in three.
- The authors conclude the evidence does not show alginates to be more or less effective than hydrocolloid or plain non-adherent dressings, or one alginate brand to differ from another, and call for better-quality trials.