[In vitro efficacy analysis of absorbent dressing modified with essential oils, against Staphylococcus aureus and...

The widespread use of antiseptics for wound dressings, unfortunately, not always effective, prompted us to search for alternative solutions, tailored to individual patient's needs. The aim of the study was checking the validity of the idea to apply some selected essential oils in order to modify active dressings which are routinely used in the care of chronically infected wounds. Our choice is commercially available an absorptive wound dressing which does not contain antiseptics (Sorbact).

The proposed is modification of dressing by its immersion in essential oil solution and then estimation of the biocide availability and stability during storage. Evaluation of inhibition of microbial surface growth (zone inhibition) and survival of absorbed microorganisms (retentivity by CFU counting) was performed directly after modification and repeated after 7 days of their storage at 4 degrees C.

This study indicated that the dressings containing essential oils can keep absorbed bacteria/fungi inside and efficiently limit their growth. Depending on the properties (composition of volatile fraction) of the tested essential oil, saturated dressings were more active when stored at 4 degrees C for 7 days after their modification. The differences of antimicrobial strength, duration of the effect and retentivity between essential oils used for dressing modification have been shown.

Modification of absorbent dressings with essential oils is a good option to achieve better therapeutic effect. Using a mixture of these four essential in several different quantitative ratios can be considered and is worthy of further research.