Maggot debridement therapy: from humans to horses

Maggot debridement therapy utilises the natural life cycle of the larvae of the greenbottle fly (Lucilia sericata) to debride and digest devitalised and necrotic tissue.

Few clinicians in veterinary practice will have avoided the evocative sight of a maggot-infested wound, and while many only associate larvae with negative outcomes there is great potential in equine use.

Medical maggots are the same species as those responsible for fly strike, but they are produced to be clinically sterile for use in hospitals and outpatient settings (Hinshaw, 2000).

Free range medical maggots used to be the only option for use, until the development of the ‘BioBag’, which allows the larvae to debride while ‘contained’ at the wound bed.

The BioBag is now accepted as the standard mode of application in human healthcare; the application and removal of which is far closer to that of a standard dressing (Figure 1).