This series is led by Drs. Young-chul Jang and Jung-hwan Lee of Hangangsoo Hospital, two experts in burn wound care and scar removal. Drs. Jang and Lee will discuss diagnosis and classification of burn wounds, burn wound care, treatment, latest dressing materials, cultured skin tissues, and scar removal, etc. Our readers who are interested in wound care may benefit from the useful information provided in this series.
Is Silvadine the Best Remedy for Burn Wounds?
While I am tending to patients with burn wounds, they often ask me if I am going to give them a topical cream, that is Silvadine. Silvadine is the white ointment widely used on burn wounds. Silvadine is a type of topical antibacterial agent that has been used in burn wounds and is still regarded as an important burn remedy in textbooks. Silvadine’s long popularity in burn care is not unfounded as it has clear benefits.
Table 1. Benefits of topical antibacterial agent and Silvadine.
However, Silvadine is slowly falling out of favor in most burn care centers. Except for a few special cases, Silvadine is rarely used in burn care today. This not due to occasional side effects such as leukopenia or kernicterus which affects infants of 2 months old or younger. I think Silvadine is becoming irrelevant due to advancements in wound care technology, changing attitudes toward burn care, and Silvadine’s particular benefit in third or higher degree burns.
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Advancement in Medical Technology
Many studies on wound healing have been published in the past few decades. During the wound healing process, various cells, growth factors, extracellular matrix molecules, and signaling molecules have complicated interactions at the molecular level. Based on previous research, studies were conducted to examine new methods of wound care. In their papers published in Nature in the early 1960s, Winter and Hinman1.2 proposed that moist dressing methods provided an ideal environment for wound healing. Based on this knowledge, various occlusive synthetic dressing materials (Table 214) were developed and established as a major modality of wound treatment.
-To be continued
