Abstract
BackgroundThe local treatment of burn wounds has long been a subject of debate. The objective of this study was to compare the cost and the effectiveness of Moist Exposed Burn Ointment -MEBO versus a combination of povidone iodine plus bepanthenol cream for partial thickness burns.MethodsThe study was carried out in the Burn Center of a state hospital in Athens, Greece. 211 patients needing conservative therapy were prospectively selected according to the depth of the burn wound. The treatment was allocated according to the Stratified Randomization Design. The outcomes measured were mean cost of in-hospital stay, rate of complications, time of 50% wound healing, pain scores, in hospital stay diminution. We have adopted a societal perspective.ResultsIn the total groups MEBO presented lower cost, (although not significantly different: p = 0.10) and better effectiveness. The data suggest that MEBO is the dominant therapy for superficial partial burn wound with significantly lower costs and significantly higher effectiveness due to a lesser time of recovery and consequently lower time of hospitalization and follow-up. MEBO presented similar percentages of complications with the comparator, lower pain levels and smaller time of no healthy appearance of the burn limits for superficial partial thickness burns.ConclusionsThe data suggested that topical application of MEBO may be considered for further investigation as a potential first-line treatment modality for superficial partial thickness burns.Trial registrationThe trial has been registered on the International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number Register (ISRCTN) and given the registration number ISRCTN74058791.
Highlights
The local treatment of burn wounds has long been a subject of debate
Aims of the trial This study is the first conducted in Greece comparing these therapies. The aim of this trial is to test the hypothesis that Moist exposed burn ointment (MEBO) substantially reduces the time of wound healing and is the more cost effective treatment modality for the local treatment of partial thickness burns compared to the standard practice
Exceptions were the cases of gender where the homogeneity was rejected (p = 0.04) for the superficial partial thickness burns groups
Summary
The local treatment of burn wounds has long been a subject of debate. The objective of this study was to compare the cost and the effectiveness of Moist Exposed Burn Ointment -MEBO versus a combination of povidone iodine plus bepanthenol cream for partial thickness burns. Clinical and experimental investigations have shown that MEBO has analgesic and antimicrobial effects, and reduces water evaporation from the burn surface [6,7,8,9,10,11,12]. Clinical studies have found that MEBO promotes debridement, epithelial repair and is associated with better scar quality [6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17]. In a prospective comparative study comparing healing with MEBO to conventional occlusive dressings, the biologic healing with MEBO, as determined by trans-epidermal water loss (TEWL) measurements, occurred at an extremely significant earlier stage and was associated with better scar quality [16]
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