Abstract:
Introduction: Acute burn wound involves complex injury and will cause systemic consequences if it is not managed well. There are a variety of dressings available in the market and the main goal of burn management is to promote healing. Selection of dressing for partial thickness burn (PTB) often causes a dilemma in healthcare professional as there are many factors which are needed to be considered besides healing rate. Objectives: To compare the effectiveness of traditional wound dressing versus advanced wound dressing in PTB. Methods: Relevant studies were identified by authors from an electronic database. We restricted the language to English publications. The electronic database search was done on 1st April 2018. We selected only randomized controlled trials (RCT) assessing the effectiveness of burn wound dressings in partial thickness burn. Data were extracted and risk of bias of each study was assessed by an investigator and then verified by another author. Analyses were done using software of RevMan 5.3. Results: Fifteen RCTs were included in this review, which includes a total of 726 wounds. Our analysis showed that burn wounds with advanced wound dressing had 3.35 day faster (CI -5.50 to -2.35) healing time compared with burn wounds on traditional dressing, although a substantial heterogeneity was observed. Wounds that applied advanced dressing appeared to. However, this analysis showed that there was no significant difference (P=0.94) in the frequency of wound infection (RR 1.05 with CI 0.29 to 3.62) between patients on the advanced and traditional wound dressing. Conclusion: Advanced wound dressing was shown to be superior in terms of wound healing time, but not in wound infection rate. However, this statement is limited by non-standardization of method part and risk of bias within studies and unexplained heterogeneity.
