Authors

1Iria María Felipez Agrelo, 2Abelardo García Zurita, 2Marina Rosalía Souto Trillo

Position

¹Enfermera. Estructura Organizativade Xestión Integrada (EOXI) A Coruña. Servicio Gallego de Salud.²Enfermero/a. Complexo Hospitalario Universitario (CHUAC) A Coruña.Servicio Gallego de Salud.

Contact address

Iria Felipez Agrelo. C/ Salgado Somoza, 3, 3º C. 15002 A Coruña.

Contact email: abeira@sapo.pt

Abstract

Objective: to determine the level of evidence available in
literature regarding the efficacy of nanocrystalline silver (Acticoat®) for the treatment of patients with burns, compared with silver sulfadiazine at 1%.
Method: narrative review, where a bibliographic search in literature is conducted, through standard protocol, in the Medline, PubMed, SciELO, Cuiden and Cochrane Library databases. The key terms “burns”, “second degree burn”, “silver dressing”, “sulfadiazine” and “nanocrystalline silver dressing” were used, with the boolean operators OR and AND. The studies were assigned a level of evidence adapted from the Oxford Centre for Evidence-based Medicine.
Results: from the union of problem and intervention through the boolean operator AND, 11 articles were obtained, though two of them were not taken into account because they had been conducted in animals, and another one was assessed
for conclusions, but did not become part of the analysis, as it was a literature review. The analysis of the selected articles demonstrated that Acticoat®, compared with the other silver dressing available, controls bacterial load and pain better,
reduces the number of dressing changes and times for healing, has fewer adverse effects, and its clinical efficacy is higher.
Conclusions: although the comparative analysis between both products shows clear results about the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of nanocrystalline silver, both in clinical management of the burn wound and its cost-benefit relationship, it is by no means less true that there are not enough
studies to declare categorically that there is complete efficacy with said nanocrystalline silver marketed under the brand Acticoat®. It would be necessary, therefore, to conduct well-designed randomized and controlled clinical trials, in order to confirm said efficacy, and to make informed clinical decisions.

Keywords:

Burns; Second degree burn; silver dressing; sulfadiazinenanocrystalline silver dressing

Versión en Español

Título:

Eficacia de la aplicación de la plata nanocristalina (Acticoat®) frente a sulfadiazina de plata en el tratamiento de quemaduras