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Clinical Use of Non-Suture Silk-Containing Products: A Systematic Review
Jose A Foppiani1,2, Allan Weidman1,2, Angelica Hernandez Alvarez1,2
1Division of Plastic Surgery, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
Aims:
The purpose of this systematic review is to determine how various innovative non-suture silk and silk-containing products are being used in clinical practice, and compare patient outcomes following their use.
Methods:
A systematic review of PubMed, Web of Science, and Cochrane was completed. A qualitative synthesis of all included studies was then performed.
Results:
Our electronic search identified 868 silk-related publications, which yielded 32 studies for full-text review. After exclusion, nine studies from 2011 to 2018 were included for qualitative analysis. A total of 346 patients were included which consisted of 37 males and 309 females. The mean age range was between 18-79 years old. The follow-up among studies ranged between one to twenty-nine months. Three studies addressed the application of silk in wound dressings, one on the topical application of silk-derived products, one on silk-derived scaffold in breast reconstruction, and three on silk underwear as adjunct for the treatment of gynecological conditions. All studies showed good outcomes alone or in comparison to controls.
Conclusion:
This systematic review concludes that silk products' structural, immune, and wound-healing modulating properties are advantageous clinical assets. Nevertheless, more studies are needed to strengthen and establish the benefit of those products.
