S Afr Med J. 2011 Sep 27;101(10):728-31.
Burns are a leading cause of non-natural death in South African infants and children. Conventional care of partial-thickness burns often requires painful, time consuming and costly twice-daily dressing changes to clean the wound and apply antimicrobial topical agents. A new topical nanocrystalline silver-coated NS dressing (Acticoat; Smith & Nephew) has been developed and is the first-line treatment of choice in many burn centres. However, because of its cost the Department of Health has been reluctant to introduce it as a standard of care. We retrospectively studied 4 randomly selected paediatric burn patients, calculating the cost associated with the use of NS dressings and comparing this with the projected costs of three previously standard burn wound treatment regimens. NS dressings were changed every 3 days based on their sustained and slow release of silver ions over 72 hours. Using NS clearly saved costs compared with the three other regimens. The demonstrated cost savings resulted primarily from the decreased number of dressings, and the presumed shorter hospital stay.
烧伤是南非婴幼儿非自然死亡的主要原因。传统的部分厚度烧伤护理通常需要痛苦、耗时且昂贵的每日两次的伤口清洗和抗菌局部药物更换。一种新的纳米晶银涂层 NS 敷料（Acticoat；Smith & Nephew）已经开发出来，并在许多烧伤中心成为首选的一线治疗方法。然而，由于其成本，卫生部一直不愿意将其作为护理标准引进。我们回顾性地研究了 4 名随机选择的儿科烧伤患者，计算了使用 NS 敷料相关的成本，并将其与之前三种标准烧伤伤口治疗方案的预计成本进行了比较。根据 NS 敷料在 72 小时内持续缓慢释放银离子的特点，每 3 天更换一次。与其他三种方案相比，使用 NS 敷料显然可以节省成本。节省的成本主要来自减少的敷料数量和预计的缩短的住院时间。
