Abstract

Background: India has an estimated annual burn incidence of 6–7 million. Nearly 10% of these are life threatening and require hospitalization. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a major cause of infection and death in patients with severe burns. Hence, there is a need to develop drugs which will decrease complications and prevent infections more effectively than the presently used drugs. Hemidesmus indicus root extract is traditionally used as antioxidant, antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory which may be responsible for faster wound healing. Aims and Objectives: The present study was carried out to evaluate the burn wound healing property of H. indicus in rabbits.
Materials and Methods: H. indicus, ointment silver sulfadiazine and 24 rabbits were used in this study. Animals were acclimatized and divided randomly into four groups. After producing partial thickness, burn wound ointment silver sulfadiazine was applied daily on the burn wound and H. indicus was administered orally once daily. Healing was assessed by percentage of wound contraction.
Results: At the end of treatment, control group showed 60.37 ± 5.44% wound contraction, group treated with ointment silver sulfadiazine showed 72 ± 3.66% wound contraction, group treated with H. indicus showed 60.97 ± 1.69% wound contraction, and group treated with ointment silver sulfadiazine with H. indicus showed 81.75 ± 6.62% wound contraction.
Conclusions: The present study concludes that combination of ointment silver sulfadiazine with H. indicus was more effective than ointment silver sulfadiazine alone.