The Relationship Between Venous Ulcer and Lymphedema: A Recognized but Underreported Topic in the Literature

Yıldırım A. C.

International Scope of Wound Management, cilt.2026, sa.1, ss.64-70, 2026 (Hakemli Dergi)

Özet

Objective: This study aimed to map the bibliometric profile of publications addressing venous ul-ceration and lymphedema and to assess the extent to which this relationship is proportionately

represented in the literature.Materials and Methods: A PubMed-derived comma-separated values (CSV) dataset containing

publications on venous ulcer and lymphedema was analyzed using descriptive statistics (absolute

and relative frequencies) in Hex.tech. Publication year, journal title, authorship fields, digital object

identifier (DOI)/PubMed Central identifier (PMCID) availability, and title-based thematic categories

were extracted. Titles were manually classified into the following categories: venous ulcer, lymph-edema/lymphatic, compression, wound care, guideline/review, interventional, and direct venous

ulcer/lymphedema overlap. No inferential statistical tests were performed.Results: The dataset contained 200 PubMed records published between 1955 and 2026, distribut-ed across 105 journals. A DOI was available for 122 records (61.0%), whereas 26 records (13.0%)

were assigned a PMCID. There were 181 unique first authors. The most frequent title-based cate-gories were compression therapy (47 records, 23.5%), lymphedema/lymphatic terminology (41 re-cords, 20.5%), and venous ulcer terminology (31 records, 15.5%). Direct venous ulcer/lymphedema

overlap was identified in only five records (2.5%).Conclusion: The venous ulcer and lymphedema relationship is clinically well recognized but re-mains underrepresented in publication titles within the analyzed PubMed literature. Future research

on venous ulcers should report lymphatic status more explicitly and include edema phenotypes and

lymphatic-specific outcomes.