Honey Vs. silver sulfadiazine in the reepithelialization of partial-thickness burn wounds

Objective: To determine whether silver sulfadiazine (SSD) should remain the gold standard of initial burn wound treatment or if it should be replaced with an alternative treatment that allows for faster skin cell regrowth. Methods: Database search of PubMed and Google Scholar were used to evaluate patient clinical trials with the search terms “burn”, “honey”, and “silver”. Results: Three trials met inclusion criteria. All three of the studies found significant improvement in their primary endpoint with the use of honey. The first study showed the honey group to have healing time of 13.47 +4.06 days and SSD group 15.62 + 4.40 days (p-value \u3c 0.0001).8 The second study showed the honey group to have a healing time of 18.1 + 2.3 days and SSD group 32.6 + 3.6 days (p-value \u3c0.05).9 The third study showed the honey group to have a healing time of 11.41 + 3.95 days, where the SSD group was 15.25 + 5.92 days (p-value 0.0049).10 Conclusion: This systematic review shows moderate evidence in support of using medical-grade honey as the gold standard for initial antimicrobial treatment for superficial partial-thickness burn wounds. However, until additional randomized, double-blinded studies comparing standardized honey products with SSD with more subjects within a smaller age range exist, we cannot recommend or discourage the use of honey over SSD