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PubMedDate not supplied

A comparison of Xeroform and SkinTemp dressings in the healing of skin graft donor sites.

The best donor site dressing would minimize pain while it increased the rate of healing. This study compares a standard fine-mesh gauze dressing, Xeroform (Sherwood Medical Industries Ltd., Markham, Ontario, Canada), to a new collagen-based dressing, SkinTemp (BioCore Inc., Topeka, Kan.). Eight patients requiring two donor sites of equal size received Xeroform gauze on one site and SkinTemp on the other. The Xeroform was covered for 24 hours and was then allowed to air-dry. Healing was determined to be complete once the gauze peeled off and complete epithelialization was observed. The SkinTemp was covered for 7 days and inspected on days 3, 5, and 7. Pain was measured daily with a standard visual analog scale. Mean Xeroform donor site size was 224.75 cm2, and SkinTemp size was 319.87 cm2. Donor site thickness was 0.012 to 0.014 inches for both. Mean length of healing was 10.62 days for Xeroform and 7.75 days for SkinTemp. Mean pain rating was 22.28 mm for Xeroform and 15.29 mm for SkinTemp. The overall preference of the eight subjects yielded five choosing SkinTemp and three choosing Xeroform, and seven reported SkinTemp as less painful. SkinTemp dressing appears to be less painful and has a better healing rate compared with Xeroform.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The effect of smoke inhalation on bradykinin metabolism by the perfused and ventilated rat lung.

The effect of smoke inhalation on bradykinin metabolism was studied in the rat lung perfused with Ringer's bicarbonate solution. After smoke (from cotton, polyester, or seat cushion material) inhalation, tritium-labeled bradykinin was added to the Ringer's bicarbonate solution, and then the lung perfusion effluent aliquots containing bradykinin and its metabolic fragments were collected after a single transpulmonary passage. For the 20 control rats without smoke inhalation, 91% of the bradykinin dose was metabolized, with Pro-Pro (I), 49%, and Arg-Pro-Pro-Gly-Phe (II), 32%, being the predominant bradykinin cleavage fragments. For 12 rats with smoke inhalation, 89% of the bradykinin dose was metabolized, with I (28%) and II (36%) being the major bradykinin cleavage fragments. The type of smoke did not significantly alter the capacity of the rat lung to metabolize bradykinin. Exposure to smoke from seat cushion material for more than 3 minutes caused pulmonary edema and thickening, and smoke exposure for more than 5 minutes caused loss of integrity at the lung alveolar-capillary interface. In contrast, exposure to cotton or polyester smoke did not cause any observable gross changes of the lung. Electron microscopic examination of lung exposed to seat cushion material smoke revealed considerable damage, with the type I epithelium existing as patches on the alveolar surface and capillary endothelium separated from the basement lamina. Thus in our model acute, short-term inhalation of smoke did not significantly alter the amount of bradykinin metabolized by the pulmonary endothelium so long as the integrity of the lung alveolar-capillary interface was maintained, although there seemed to be a moderate shift in the amount of major cleavage fragments from I to II.

Animals↗