Experience with Honey Dressings
By: Ghulam Qadir Fayyaz, M.D.

Page 2

Table 2 shows the type and extent of burns in our cases.

Table 2

BSTTW
Translations
     Male     
     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 3

     Time     
     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 4

     Healing     
     % 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 5

          
     Honey     
     Silver Sulphadiazine      
     Spontanious Healing     
     10 days     
     15 days     
     Grafting     
     10 days     
     21 days     

Table 6

          
     Honey     
     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 7

  Culture 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

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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.

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