Comparing the Effects of Acticoat and Silver Sulfadiazine on Burn Wound Healing: A Randomized Comparative Trial between Acticoat and Silver Sulfadiazine in Burn Wounds Healing

Silver-containing dressings are the latest and biggest invention in wound care products. There are many dressing materials available to treat  burn wounds but none of them has strong evidence to support their use. This study was done to compare the efficacy of nanocrystalline silver (Acticoat) and silver sulfadiazine (SD-Ag) in the treatment of burn wounds.

This clinical trial was done in Arak city. Sixty-nine burn patients were enrolled and divided into two groups of the Acticoat group and silver sulfadiazine group. Acticoat was changed once every 3 days. Silver sulfadiazine was used as control group whose members were treated under the usual clinical routine. Healing time was observed up to 15 days. Healing percentage was determined on the 15th day after treatment.

By comparing the mean values of the size of the wound in three turns, it was observed that the size of the wound significantly decreased over the difference of the size between the two groups (p=0.000, F=143.716).

Acticoat with nanocrystalline silver promotes the healing process of wounds post-burn effectively. No adverse reaction of Acticoat was observed during the study.