Characterization of patients with chronic skin ulcers and their acute phase reactants levels

Caracterización de pacientes con úlceras cutáneas crónicas y sus niveles de reactantes de fase aguda

Objective: to characterize patients with skin and soft tissue lesions with their acute phase reactants levels, in a high complexity institution. Materials and methods: a retrospective observational study including patients over 18 years of age with skin ulcers of different etiologies, in whom acute phase reactants were measured before and after lesion exacerbation and were treated at the participating institution. Non-probabilistic sampling of consecutive cases was performed. The Jamovi program was used for data analysis. The median and interquartile range was calculated in quantitative variables with abnormal distribution; the quantitative variables with normal distribution were presented as mean and standard deviation. Qualitative variables were measured using absolute and relative frequencies. Discussion: 56 patients with skin ulcers whose main etiologies were immobility (26.78%) and venous insufficiency (25%), were included. The most common location was the foot and sacral-gluteal region, equally (21.42%). It was evidenced that 41.07% were less than 10 cm2 in size. Tests workup median for hemoglobin was11.7 and C-reactive protein (CRP) 4.86. Conclusions: knowing about the clinical and sociodemographic features of patients with chronic skin lesions allows health personnel to provide individualized care enabling an integral approach to this condition and taking actions aimed at managing and improving quality of life in this group of patients.