Griswold J A, Cepica T, Rossi L, Wimmer J S, Merrifield H H, Hester C, Sauter T, Baker C R
Department of Surgery, Timothy J. Harnar Burn Center, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock 79430, USA.
J Burn Care Rehabil. 1995 Mar-Apr;16(2 Pt 1):136-40. doi: 10.1097/00004630-199503000-00008.
The best donor site dressing would minimize pain while it increased the rate of healing. This study compares a standard fine-mesh gauze dressing, Xeroform (Sherwood Medical Industries Ltd., Markham, Ontario, Canada), to a new collagen-based dressing, SkinTemp (BioCore Inc., Topeka, Kan.). Eight patients requiring two donor sites of equal size received Xeroform gauze on one site and SkinTemp on the other. The Xeroform was covered for 24 hours and was then allowed to air-dry. Healing was determined to be complete once the gauze peeled off and complete epithelialization was observed. The SkinTemp was covered for 7 days and inspected on days 3, 5, and 7. Pain was measured daily with a standard visual analog scale. Mean Xeroform donor site size was 224.75 cm2, and SkinTemp size was 319.87 cm2. Donor site thickness was 0.012 to 0.014 inches for both. Mean length of healing was 10.62 days for Xeroform and 7.75 days for SkinTemp. Mean pain rating was 22.28 mm for Xeroform and 15.29 mm for SkinTemp. The overall preference of the eight subjects yielded five choosing SkinTemp and three choosing Xeroform, and seven reported SkinTemp as less painful. SkinTemp dressing appears to be less painful and has a better healing rate compared with Xeroform.
