Use of a semi-permeable membrane dressing in donor sites in Nigerians

Most published studies on the use of a semi-permeable membrane dressing (opsite) on split-skin donor sites have been on Caucasians. To assess this new method on the black population of a developing country where donor sites are notoriously slow to heal, a study was conducted on fifty Nigerians of varying age groups in whom split-skin grafts of identical thickness were taken from both thighs by the same surgeon: 100 donor sites were studied. In all the patients one thigh was dressed with the conventional sofratulle and the other with opsite. The allocation was made randomly. Twenty-five donor sites (53.4%) treated with sofratulle healed by the 13th postoperative day. By contrast, thirty donor sites (62.5%) treated with opsite healed by the 7th postoperative day. All opsite treated wounds were completely healed by the 11th day but it took nearly four weeks for the sofratulle treated thighs to heal. Minimal discomfort was experienced by 10% of the patients treated with opsite but about 80% of those treated with sofratulle required mild analgesics on ambulation during the first 48 hours on account of pain. Opsite effectively reduces healing time in donor sites, is easy to apply, less bulky to use, painfree and well tolerated by patients.