Treating wounds in small animals with maggot debridement therapy: A survey of practitioners Ronald A. Sherman a,b, * , Howard Stevens c , David Ng d , Eve Iversen e a Department of Pathology, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-4800, USA b BioTherapeutics, Education and Research Foundation, 36 Urey Court, Irvine, CA 92617, USA c Brookside Animal Hospital, Tulsa, OK 74105, USA d Department of Biological Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-4800, USA e San Pablo, CA 94806, USA Abstract Many small animals succumb to complications of serious wounds. Sometimes infection and sepsis overwhelm the animal; some- times the costs of intensive care overwhelm the owner. Maggot therapy, a method of wound debridement using live fly larvae, could provide effective, simple, low cost wound care. All eight US veterinarians who had been provided with medicinal maggots were sur- veyed to determine if this treatment was being used for small animals, and for what indications. At least two dogs, four cats and one rabbit were treated with maggot therapy between 1997 and 2003. The most common indications for using maggot therapy were to effect debridement and control infection, especially if the wound failed to respond to conventional medical and/or surgical therapy. Practitioners reported the treatments as safe and often beneficial. Amputation and euthanasia may have been avoided. It is con- cluded that maggot therapy may have utility for small animals, and should be evaluated further. Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Wound healing; Small animal surgery; Maggot therapy; Canine; Feline 1. Introduction For centuries, wound myiasis of soldiers injured in battle was associated with improved survival and wound healing (Baer, 1931; Pechter and Sherman, 1983). Thou- sands of doctors around the world now treat their wounded human patients by inducing a therapeutic myiasis, called ‘‘maggot debridement therapy’’ (Sher- man, 2000, 2002). Veterinary maggot therapy is still uncommon and although the use of maggot debride- ment therapy (MDT) in non-human animals has been discussed in the past (Mulder, 1989; Iversen, 1996) it is rarely performed (Dixon, 1933; Dicke, 1953; Bell and Thomas, 2001; Thiemann, 2003). Given the gruesome realities of invasive myiasis (Scruggs, 1975; Guerrini, 1988; Hall and Wall, 1995; Farkas et al., 1997) and the paucity of evidence supporting MDT in small ani- mals, many veterinarians interviewed prior to this study were highly sceptical about the safety and wisdom of applying even medical grade maggots to wounded small animals. Although the utility of MDT in animals has remained in doubt, a few veterinarians have used MDT in a des- perate attempt to manage problematic wounds. These veterinarians were surveyed systematically to assess their experiences and opinions about this unconventional treatment. 1090-0233/$ - see front matter Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tvjl.2005.11.006 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 949 824 5829; fax: +1 949 824 1098. E-mail address: RSherman@uci.edu (R.A. Sherman). www.elsevier.com/locate/tvjl The Veterinary Journal 173 (2007) 138–143 The Veterinary Journal