Efficacy of a limb-care regime in preventing acute adenolymphangitis in patients with lymphoedema caused by bancroftian filariasis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka

Abstract

The efficacy of a programme of community home-based care (CHBC) for lymphoedematous limbs was evaluated among 163 lymphoedema patients attending two filariasis clinics in Colombo. Each patient was interviewed and examined and his or her lymphoedema was graded during a baseline assessment, before the CHBC programme, and again, during a post-intervention assessment, after the patient had been in the programme for 1 year. The number of patients having entry lesions was 24% lower at the post-intervention assessment than at the baseline (P<0.001), with a reduction in the frequency of each type of entry lesion investigated. In the year the patients were in the CHBC programme, 30% fewer of them exp..