gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: In low-income countries, it is difficult to have equipment to establish the diagnosis of partial thickness burns, since there is no equipment such as laser Doppler. However is necessary cover the woud with a dressing to prevent the wound drying and perhaps starting the treatment of the burn. We chose Epicitehydro, a non-woven 3D network biopolymer of pure Nano-cellulose fibers, provides protection against pathogens, prevents cell adhesion with the wound, biocompatible, liquid absorption and retention capacity, moisture content control and avoid pain.

Objective: Present the experience in a Children Burn Unit with Epicitehydro as a first-line dressing in patients with superficial and deep partial thickness or indeterminate burns by scald, who arrive during the first 48 hours after the injury, to whom Epicitehydro was applied.

Materials and Methods: Patients with scald burns whom arrive in first 48 hours and accepted the use of Epicitehydro.

Results: 50 patients, age between 1 and 35 years. There were 29 males and 21 female. TBSA involvement varied between 2 to 54%, the superficial thickness was the most often. Time average from burn to the application of Epicitehydro were 26 hours. All the patients presented a satisfactory evolution, so we waited until 5th or 7th day to proceed to remove the dressing and we observe: epithelialization in 100% if TBSA was less than 5%; epithelialization in 95% % if TBSA less than 10% and the patients with more than TBSA >11% had epithelialization between 80 to 90%, and someone required autograft or allograft to obtain a complete epithelialization. Also, we observed decreased in the inflammatory response and pain.

Conclusions: The use of this new dressing promotes fast and excellent epithelialization in superficial and deep partial thickness injury, especially scald burns. In addition, we found, no pain during use and removal of the dressing, and there were no infections.