Comparison of four drugs for local treatment of burn wounds.

Effective local treatment is very important in preventing wound infection and its generalization and ensuring successful skin grafting. The aim of our study is to compare the activity of four topical agents [deflamol (20 patients), polyvidone-iodine (21 patients), flammazine (silver sulphadiazine--SSD) (28 patients) and flammacerium (SSD with cerium nitrate) (five patients)] for treatment of patients with burns by confirming our clinical observations of their efficacy with comparative bacteriological investigations. The final estimation of our results showed the undoubted priority of flammazine and flammacerium over deflamol and polyvidone-iodine, as the treatment of all the patients with these two drugs gave very good and good results, respectively. In contrast, the results in 70% of the patients from the deflamol group and in 52.4% of those from the polyvidone-iodine group were unsatisfactory. At this stage we cannot find any significant differences in the antibacterial activity between flammazine and flammacerium. However, the excision of the firm eschars formed by flammacerium is easier and it gives the opportunity to postpone operation for a month or more. In conclusion we found suitable indications for preference of each of the topical agents included in our study.