Short-term outcomes following amniotic membrane and conventional dressing in skin graft donor site; a randomized clinical trial

Abstract

Introduction: Burn injuries have been associated with a bad prognosis throughout history. Nowadays, the treatment of burn wounds is one of the problems in the country’s health care system. There are several treatments for localized burns, such as antimicrobial dressings (using topical antibiotic drugs) and biological dressings (using tissue from living organisms). Biologic dressing with an amniotic membrane is one of the treatments for burned tissues in these patients. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the short-term outcomes of dressing with amniotic membrane and routine dressing in graft donor site. Patients and Methods: This clinical trial study was conducted in the burn ward of Imam Khomeini hospital, Urmia, Iran in 2019. The patients were treated with two amniotic membrane dressings (the patient’s left leg) and a local antimicrobial dressing (the patient’s right leg). The amniotic membrane was purchased from Sina Cell Company and used to dress the second-degree wound. Patients’ right foot was covered with gauze soaked in nitrofurazone dressing since 2 μg of ointment was used for each percent of graft site. The recovery and epithelialization time was assessed one month after the study. Results: The rate of infection in the two groups did not differ significantly. Furthermore, the rate of wound healing (epithelialization) and post-dressing pain was much better in the group of dressings with amniotic membrane than the group of routine dressings, which was significant (P<0.01) and showed that amniotic membrane dressings are much more effective in healing wounds and reducing pain compared to the routine dressings. Conclusion: This study showed that the use of amniotic membrane for dressing second-degree burn wounds, compared to the routine dressings, has better results and benefits such as less pain, faster epithelialization, shorter length of stay at hospital and better patient acceptance. Trial Registration: Registration of trial protocol has been approved by the Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (identifier: IRCT20181216041996N1, https://en.irct.ir/trial/35985, ethical code; IR.UMSU.REC.1397.245).