Efficacy of Hydrogel-Silver Combination Wound Dressing in Management of Chronic Wounds at Bhuj, Kutch-A Prospective Study

Chronic wounds due to trauma, peripheral ischaemia and diabetes take long to heal with conventional dressings and are big drain to resources. World over researchers have shown interest in dressings impregnated with silver. The present study was undertaken to assess the efficacy of hydrogel-silver combination wound dressing in decreasing the overall cost.

Present study was prospective descriptive analytical study carry out in the General Surgery Department at Gujarat Adani institute of Medical Science, Bhuj, Kutch; Gujarat for period of one year. Forty three male patients with 52 ulcer/wounds of more than four weeks duration or showing poor healing in-spite of conventional dressings and other supportive measures were included in study. The commonly available hydrogel-silver combination was used. Serial wound swabs for cultures were obtained at each dressing change. The end point of therapy was when wound was free of local infection and healed completely or became fit for split skin graft coverage.

A total of 43 patients with 52 chronic wounds were treated during the study period. The median duration of wounds was 9–12 weeks with 26 wounds. The wound size ranged from 8 cm²; to 200 cm²;, with an average wound size of 48.09 cm²;. The length of hospital stay was much less as 25% wounds healed on its own and 38.5% of the wounds were covered with split skin grafts after third dressings. 9.6% wounds failed to improve or heal and classified as failure to the Hydroheal AM therapy.

The colloidal silver was found to be effective in controlling local infection while hydrogel provided moist environment for epithelization. The overall hospital stay of patients decreased due to faster healing or fitness of wounds for split skin graft cover.