The basic aim of treating chronic wounds is to support the body’s own healing process.
“The most important thing is to ensure that the affected tissue has sufficient blood and oxygen available and that the wound is regularly cleaned and refreshed,” says Dr. Philip Düppers, senior physician responsible for the wound consultation and certified medical wound expert at the USZ since January 2020.
For this purpose, the wound consultation hour has a wide range of modern wound dressings and debridement procedures as well as many years of nursing and medical expertise at its disposal.
Special procedures are briefly presented below.
Special therapy options
Occasionally, vacuum therapy is also prescribed in an outpatient setting.
A coarse-pored sponge is applied to the wound with a film.
A drainage tube is then used to suction out wound secretions using negative pressure.
This cleans the wound, reduces the number of harmful germs and promotes blood circulation.
Vacuum therapy is usually preceded by a surgical procedure to remove dead tissue.
In cold plasma therapy, cold plasma is sprayed onto the wound for around one minute using a pen.
This special gas can be used to kill hostile bacteria or viruses, stimulate cell growth and supply the skin and cells with oxygen.
Maggot therapy, on the other hand, is used when a layer of dead tissue is particularly persistent on the wound.
In this process, fly larvae bred and disinfected in the laboratory eat up the diseased tissue (biochemical debridement).
Interdisciplinary wound consultation
An interdisciplinary wound consultation is also offered at regular intervals.
Patients benefit from the expertise of different specialist areas, as specialists from dermatology, plastic surgery, angiology and orthopaedics take part in these wound consultations alongside our vascular surgery specialists.
Please register at iws@usz.ch.
Recognized wound center
Since March 2020, our wound consultation has been recognized as a wound center by the Swiss Association for Wound Treatment (SAfW). 
Wound consultation flyer
