Martorell’s ulcer: a literature review and own clinical observation

Abstract

Introduction. Martorell’s ulcer is a rather rare pathology that occurs exclusively in patients with long-term and poorly controlled arterial hypertension and continues to be one of the poorly studied areas of modern surgery. There are few reports on the occurrence of this pathology in the medical literature and, as a rule, describe extremely rare clinical cases. The issues of etiology, pathogenesis and differential diagnosis of this disease continue to cause debate. The article provides a review of the literature on this rare surgical pathology, presents its own clinical observation, discusses the issues of diagnosis and treatment options for this disease.Clinical case. A 56-year-old patient was admitted with complaints of a non-healing trophic ulcer on the lateral surface in the lower third of the right leg since one year ago with severe pain syndrome not adequately controlled with non-narcotic analgesics. he received treatment in an outpatient department and in the hospital, underwent courses of rheological therapy to the ulcer region as a local therapy, used a wide range of dressings of domestic and foreign origin. No positive effect was reported on the top of already administered combination therapy, the ulcer continued to increase in size. A Martorell’s ulcer was diagnosed, and a decision was made to provide a course of presurgical conservative rheological therapy with PGE1 (VAP 20 mg), antibiotic therapy, and local therapy aimed at maximal ulcer necrotic tissue clearance before the forthcoming planned surgical treatment. The patient underwent the surgery – autodermatoplasty of the trophic ulcer of the right leg with a mesh graft, continued local treatment of the ulcer using dressings with peruvian balsam and other medications on an outpatient basis without chemical and biological components from the antiseptics and healing stimulants group. Two months after the surgery, the patient had no complaints, the pain syndrome in the ulcer region completely regressed, no edema occurred in the lower operated leg, the right let ulcer completely healed with the formation of a permanent scar.Conclusion. Surgical management is the final and definitive treatment for Martorell’s chronic hypertensive ulcer and should be carried out promptly to minimize the spread of the ulcer and minimize a pain syndrome.

Keywords

• martorell’s ulcer
• hypertensive ischemic ulcer of the leg
• pyoderma gangrenosum
• calciphylaxis
• chronic long-term nonhealing ulcer
• autodermatoplasty