Experience with Honey Dressings
By: Ghulam Qadir Fayyaz, M.D.
Page 2
Table 2BSTTWTranslationsMale
Female
TBSA(% Age)
Superficial
08
04
15......50
Medium
05
03
10......40
Full Thickness
05
02
10......30
Mixed
10
13
5......45
Total
22
28
No patient presented to us immediately after burn accident. The presentation time is shown in Table 3.
Table 3Time
No. of Patients
Within 48 hours
5
3rd day-1 Week
35
> 1 Week
10
Total
50
Most of the patients had deep burns and needed grafting of their ulcers as described in table 4.
Table 4Healing
% Age of Patients
Mean time for Healing
Spontanious Healing
40%
10 days
Grafting
60%
14 days
In patients with symmetrical involvement of two limbs the effects of honey were compared with Silver sulphadiazine with patients' consent. The results are depicted in Table 5 and 6.
Table 5Honey
Silver Sulphadiazine
Spontanious Healing
10 days
15 days
Grafting
10 days
21 days
Table 6Honey
Silver Sulphadiazine
Superficial burns healed Spontaneously
Number Days
Number Days
04 13
04 17
Deep Burns Needing Grafting
Number Days
Number Days
06 21
06 28
Table 7 shows the results of culture and sensitivity reports.Table 7Culture Matter
Honey
Silver Sulphadiazine
Mild
28
22
Moderate
12
20
Heavy
10
28
Total
50
90
Discussion
There is plethora of studies1-16 on honey in the developed world; New Zealand and Australia are leading the work at this movement.
In New Zealand there is honey research unit at the University of Waikato, Hamilton New Zealand. I am in continuous touch with Dr. P.C. Molan17,18 who is the director of the unit working on honey for 20 years. Dr. P.C. Molan is known as a world authority on this subject. In his lot many publications he has strongly concluded in favor of honey as the best wound-dressing agent. He has managed to develop a medical grade honey named as MEDI HONEY and published the attributes of medi honey as:
* Physical barrier to prevent wounds from infection.* Promote healing by stimulation of growth process as formation of new blood capillaries and fibroblasts.* No sticking to wounds therefore no tearing away of newly formed tissue, no pain while dressing changed.* Anti inflammatory action, increase the circulation* Draws lymph out of wound and lifts dirt/dead tissue out of wound bed* Rapid clearance of infection from wounds and fully effective even with antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria.* Unlike antiseptics and antibiotics there is no impairment of healing process.In India some work has been done on honey and compared with potato peel and silver sulphadiazine and they have similar observations(ref 14,15,19,20).
It is a novel work in Pakistan since no similar work has been done here until now.
Our clinical experience supports the observations made by the international studies, which have already been described in the introduction1-20.
