Venous leg ulcer: incidence and prevalence in the elderly.

Abstract

Venous leg ulcer is a disease most common in those aged 65 years and older. However, the incidence and prevalence have not been well established. Our purpose was to estimate the prevalence and incidence of venous leg ulcers in the elderly. We studied the General Practice Research Database, validated our case ascertainment strategy, and estimated the annual prevalence and incidence of venous leg ulcer. The positive predictive value of our ascertainment strategy was 98.3% (95% confidence interval [CI], 90.0, 100.0). The annual prevalence of venous leg ulcer among the elderly was 1.69 (95% CI, 1.65, 1.74). The overall incidence rate was 0.76 (95% CI, 0.71, 0.83) for men and 1.42 (1.35, 1.48) per 100 person-years for women. Venous leg ulcer is a significant problem in those aged 65 years and older. As compared with previous studies, because we used medical records from a population of known size, our results are precise and less biased.