Honey Provides Better, Faster Treatment for Burn Wounds

Incredible as it may seem, honey heals wounds and burns, protecting against inflammation or infection and enhancing new tissue formation and thus reducing scarring...

Comparison Between Topical Honey and Mafenide Acetate in Treatment of Burn Wounds

Ann BurnsFire Disasters, 2011 Sep 30

Histological and clinical studies of wound healing were performed in comparable cases of fresh partial-thickness burns treated with honey dressing or mafenide acetate in two groups of 50 randomly allocated patients.

Of the patients with honey-treated wounds, 84% showed satisfactory epithelialization by day 7 and 100% by day 21. In wounds treated with mafenide acetate, epithelialization occurred by day 7 in 72% of cases and in 84% by day 21. Histological evidence of reparative activity was observed in 80% of wounds treated with honey dressing by day 7 with minimal inflammation.

Fifty-two per cent of the mafenide acetate treated wounds showed reparative activity with inflammatory changes by day 7. Reparative activity reached 100% by day 21 with the honey dressing and 84% with mafenide acetate.

Thus, in honey-dressed wounds, early subsidence of acute inflammatory changes, better control of infection, and quicker wound healing were observed, while in mafenide acetate treated wounds a sustained inflammatory reaction was noted even on epithelialization.