Use of Fly Larvae (Insecta: Diptera) as an Alternative Treatment for Wounds

Abstract

Larvotherapy, which, as the name suggests, is the use of larvae, in the case of flies, to heal wounds that resist healing. They act on the wound through four mechanisms: they remove dead necrotic tissue, disrupt the bacterial biofilm, an extremely organized community of microorganisms that greatly interfere with the ulceration repair process, promote the growth of healthy tissue, and eliminate bacteria that cause infection. The treatment is more efficient in some cases than traditional medications and scarring. The objective of this manuscript is to describe the use of fly larvae as an alternative therapy. The methodology used an integrative literature review and a synthesis process to develop the study to expand the understanding of knowledge and achieve the expected results. The integrative literature review is a method that aims to synthesize results obtained in research on a topic or issue, in a systematic, ordered, and comprehensive way. It is called integrative because it provides broader information on a subject/problem, thus constituting a body of knowledge. To carry out the study, a search for scientific articles was carried out through the Virtual Health Library, in the SCIELO, LILACS, and PUBMED databases, using the terminologies registered in the Health Sciences descriptors, maggots, flies, and wounds, healing. Regarding the inclusion criteria, national and international articles were used in full, in Portuguese, English, and Spanish. The exclusion criteria were articles that were presented in duplicate and did not meet the objectives of the investigation.