Amniotic membranes as dressings following facial dermabrasion

Facial dermabrasion produces a raw, painful, partial-thickness wound, quite similar to a split-thickness skin graft donor site. The various methods of dressing such wounds employing ointments, impregnated gauze, bulky absorptive dressings, xenografts, or allografts are time consuming, uncomfortable for the patient, and not infrequently characterized by localized purulence and delayed healing. Experience with amniotic membranes as biologic dressings, both experimental and clinical, prompted a trial of these membranes as a dressing following facial dermabrasion. Thirty-three patients undergoing facial dermabrasion were dressed with amniotic membranes following the procedures. The results following this dressing method were excellent. The biologic basis and the techniques of preparing and applying amniotic membranes as dressings following facial dermabrasion are presented. The advantages of amniotic membranes over the other presently employed dressing techniques following facial dermabrasion are discussed.