Maggot therapy might sound like a practice ripped straight from the medieval era — but for some doctors and patients, it has proven to be a life-changing treatment option. Many doctors across the United States have relied on maggot therapy, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2004, to treat patients with serious wounds.
How Maggot Therapy Works
Dr. Ronald Sherman, a leading expert in the field, explained to NBC News that the therapy works because maggots can dissolve “dead infected tissue” in wounds. “They do not have teeth. They do not bite pieces from the tissue. They secrete their digestive enzymes which dissolve the dead infected tissue in the wound, and so only that tissue melts away,” he told the network. “The healthy tissue stays behind.”
Dr. David Armstrong, another wound care expert, refers to maggots as “nature’s microsurgeons” due to the therapy’s effectiveness, according to a 2023 article by the Wound Care Education Institute. However, doctors often do not turn to maggot therapy unless other treatment plans have failed. Armstrong noted that many of his patients “have typically already seen three or four other doctors for their wounds, and many other things have already been tried before in an attempt to heal their wound or wounds.”
Benefits and Limitations
Medical maggots start out smaller than a grain of rice but can grow to a maximum of 12 millimeters throughout the treatment, according to the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). They also cannot reproduce in the wound. The therapy can be especially beneficial for patients who wish to avoid surgery.
“Surgery tends to be a bit coarse,” Sherman told NBC News. “The scalpel is straight, and the border between healthy tissue and dead tissue is not straight. The surgeon’s vision is limited to a macroscopic level, not a cellular level, not a microscopic level.” He added that patients do not require anesthesia, “which is the greatest risk for people who are deemed poor surgical candidates.”
While maggot therapy can be effective for some patients, it also has limitations. Maggots can improve the condition of a wound and kickstart the healing process, but they should not be considered a “cure for all types of wounds, by removing dead tissue and any associated bacteria,” according to the NHS website.
