Meta-Analysis of the Therapeutic Effect of Nanosilver on Burned Skin

Abstract

Nano silver is widely used in the treatment of burn wounds globally, but most clinical studies on the efficacy of the treatment are small-sample randomized controlled studies. Hence, we aimed to systematically evaluate the efficacy of nano silver and sulfadiazine silver for the treatment of burn wounds through meta-analysis of multiple small studies. Randomized controlled trials were collected from the published literature to compare the effects of nano silver application and sulfadiazine silver application on burns. After evaluating the quality of the methodology and extracting the data from each study, we used RevMan 5.1 software to conduct meta-analysis on eight randomized controlled trials which encompassed 513 patients with second degree burns. The results of the meta-analysis showed that the wound healing time of the nano silver treatment group was less than that of sulfadiazine silver group (P < 0.001) but the wound healing rate of nano silver treatment group was not significantly different from that of control group on the 15th day (MD = 7.10; 95% P = 0.14). Compared with the sulfadiazine silver treatment group, the difference between the nano silver treatment group and sulfadiazine silver treatment group was significant in reducing the pain of burn wounds (P < 0.001). This suggests that the application of nano silver can promote the healing of burn wounds compared with sulfadiazine silver and has considerable advantages in relieving the pain intensity of burn wounds. However, these conclusions need to be further confirmed by a large sample in a high-quality randomized controlled study.