Maggots aren’t high on most people’s favorite-animals list. But maggots - specifically, the larvae of the green blowfly, Phaenicia sericata - can be helpful for the very reason they horrify.
By eating dead tissue at a patient’s wound site, maggots may help decrease the risk of post-operative infections, according to an article in the October 1 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online.
Although military surgeons noticed maggots’ beneficial effect on soldiers’ wounds centuries ago, maggot debridement therapy (MDT) as it is practiced today began in the 1920s and is undergoing a revival in popularity. Debridement, or the removal of contaminated tissue to expose healthy tissue, can be done surgically. However, maggots that have been disinfected during the egg stage so that they don’t carry bacteria into the wound have their advantages. The larvae preferentially consume dead tissue (steering clear of live), they excrete an antibacterial agent, and they stimulate wound healing--all factors that could be linked to the lower occurrence of infection in maggot-treated wounds.
MDT typically involves applying maggot dressings to patients’ wounds twice a week for 48-72 hours at a time. California researchers conducted a small, retrospective study of MDT procedures performed at one hospital between 1990 and 1995. The researchers found that none of 10 wounds treated with MDT within three weeks prior to surgery developed infections, but 32 percent of 19 wounds not treated with MDT in the same time period before surgery became infected.