Maggot Debridement Therapy

Maggot therapy on a wound - Wikimedia Commons

• Human medicine
  • Sterile Lucilia sericata maggots used to treat infected and necrotic wounds
  • Larvae secrete proteolytic enzymes and antimicrobial agents into the wound
  • Larvae do not burrow under the skin or attack healthy tissue

• Veterinary medicine
  • Published reports rare
  • Recently used successfully to treat a suppurative wound in a donkey that did not respond to conventional medical methods and surgery