Volume : VII, Issue : II, February - 2017

Role of hydrogel wound dressings with colloidal silver in management of chronic wounds in young male patients

Dr Col D J Sharma

Abstract :

 Introduction Chronic wounds due to trauma, peripheral ischaemia and diabetes take long to heal with conventional dressings and are big drain to resources. World over researchers have shown interest in dressings impregnated with silver. The present study was undertaken to assess the efficacy of hydrogel–silver combination wound dressing in decreasing the overall cost.             Material and methods A prospective descriptive study design was used to evaluate our experience. The commonly available hydrogel–silver combination (Hydroheal AM, Dr Reddys’ Lab) was used. The wounds were dressed as per protocol. Serial wound swabs for cultures were obtained at each dressing change. The end point of therapy was when wound was free of local infection and healed completely or became fit for split skin graft coverage. Results A total of 43 patients with 52 chronic wounds were treated during the study period. The median duration of wounds was 9–12 weeks with 26 wounds. The wound size ranged from 8 cm² to 200 cm², with an average wound size of 48.09 cm². The length of hospital stay was much less as 13 (25%) wounds healed on its own and 20 (38.5%) of the wounds were covered with split skin grafts after third dressings. 05 (9.6%) wounds failed to improve or heal and classified as failure to the Hydroheal AM therapy. Conclusion The colloidal silver was found to be effective in controlling local infection while hydrogel provided moist environment for epithelization. The overall hospital stay of patients decreased due to faster healing or fitness of wounds for split skin graft cover.  

Keywords :

Article: Download PDF   DOI : 10.36106/ijar  

Cite This Article:

Dr (Col) D J Sharma, Role of hydrogel wound dressings with colloidal silver in management of chronic wounds in young male patients, INDIAN JOURNAL OF APPLIED RESEARCH : Volume‾7 | Issue‾2 | February‾2017


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