Maggot therapy might sound like a practice ripped straight from the medieval era — but for some doctors and patients, it’s proven to be a life-changing treatment option.
Many doctors across the U.S. have relied on maggot therapy — which was approved by the FDA in 2004 — to treat patients’ serious wounds. Dr. Ronald Sherman, a leading expert in the field, told NBC News the therapy works because maggots can dissolve “dead infected tissue” in the 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” because the therapy is so effective, according to a 2023 article by the Wound Care Education Institute. Still, doctors often don’t turn to maggot therapy unless other treatment plans have failed.
Armstrong told the Wound Care Education Institute 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.”
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 U.K.’s National Health Service. They also can’t reproduce in the wound.
The therapy can be especially beneficial for patients who want 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 said patients don’t need anesthesia, “which is the greatest risk for people who are deemed poor surgical candidates.”
While maggot therapy can be an effective treatment for some patients, it also has limitations.
Maggot can improve the condition of a wound and kickstart a healing process but they shouldn’t be considered a “cure for all types of wounds, by removing dead tissue and any associated bacteria,” according to the NHS website.
