<qa>  What is the mainstay of treatment of leg ulcers?The mainstay of treatment of leg ulcers is graded compression therapy to squeeze the fluid out of the leg and venous system. This has been shown to be effective in many clinical trials. However, despite this treatment patients take many months to heal with median healing times of approximately 12 weeks in previous trials and for some patients compression therapy does not result in resolution of their leg ulcers. The use of compression as well as dressings largely to manage the wound exudate can be expensive as nurse time is required to change bandages which can be required weekly or more frequently. Furthermore, for many patients the compression therapy is uncomfortable sometimes painful and inconvenient for everyday life compression is bulky and dressings have to be changed several times weekly. If other treatments were able to reduce the time to healing then this would be a significant breakthrough. 