Journal of Advances in Medicine and Medical Research

Background: Skin grafting is a common procedure designed to close defects in both acute and chronic wounds. Split-thickness skin grafting involves excision of the epidermis and part of the dermis. This technique leaves behind some epidermal tissue and significant dermis in the wound to facilitate the donor site wound healing by re-epithelialization. There is yet no consensus on donor site care. The aim of the study was to compare Calgitrol silver and chlorhexidine tulle- gras (Bactigras) dressings for split-thickness skin graft donor site wound. The specific objectives were to compare the of time of healing, surgical site infection and the pain levels of split thickness skin graft donor site wound dressed with Calgitrol silver and chlorhexidine tulle-gras (Bactigras).

Materials and Methods: This study was conducted over a period of 18 months. The study population included male and female patients aged 18 to 65years who needed split thickness skin grafting. Informed consent was obtained before enlisting the subjects into the study. Eligible patients were randomly grouped into A (those whose donor site was dressed with calgitrol silver) and B (those who had bactigras dressing). The parameters that were recorded included degree of healing assessed on 7^th,10^th,14^th,18^th, and 21^st day post op, incidence of surgical site infection and level of pain perception at donor site on 4^th,7th and 14^th day post op. Analysis of data was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0. Calculations of mean, standard deviations, and associations between the variables were tested for statistical significance using appropriate statistical tools. p-values less than 0.05 were considered significant.

Results: One hundred patients were recruited for this study.  Complete healing occurred in day 7 in 92.9% calgitrol silver group (A) and 7.1% in bactigras group (B) (p=0.001). Similarly, complete healing occurred in day 10 in 88.5% in the group A and 11.5% in group B (p=0.001). All who had surgical site infection were from bactigras group(p=0.001). Of those who had no post-operative pain on the 4^th day post op,74.1% were from calgitrol group (p=0.001).

Conclusion: This study has demonstrated that calgitrol silver dressings led to faster rate of healing of split thickness donor site wounds, lesser donor site pain and excellent prevention of surgical site infection.