Epidermal repair in chronic venous ulcers

Certain features of epidermal repair, namely increased mitotic activity, cell migration and cell differentiation, have been investigated in fresh biopsies from 17 patients with chronic venous ulcers, using light and electron microscopy. Increased mitotic activity was present at the edges of most of these lesions whether they were in a grossly recognizable healing or non-healing phase, and some cells with ultrastructural features of migratory cells were invariably seen. The results are discussed in relation to other chronic epithelial lesions and suggest that failure of epithelialization is not due to any lack of epithelial cell production and that some other fundamental defect must be sought.