REVOLTING REMEDIES

Medical treatments that might make your stomach turn. This week: Maggots MAGGOT therapy is commonly used in the NHS for debridement, the removal of dead, unhealthy or infected tissue, as well as to clean surgical and trauma wounds and leg and pressure ulcers.

‘Maggot therapy can be used when other ways to remove this tissue aren’t suitable,’ explains Samantha Holloway, a reader in wound healing and tissue repair at Cardiff University School of Medicine in Wales. ‘For example, scalpels can cause excessive bleeding, and some specialist dressing can take weeks to get the same result as maggots. They’re not only quick and effective at removing dead tissue, they also have an antimicrobial effect [thanks to the compounds they release] that help manage infection in the wound, which speeds recovery.’