A RANDOMIZED STUDY OF AN ALOE VERA DERIVATIVE GEL DRESSING VERSUS CONVENTIONAL TREATMENT AFTER SHAVE BIOPSY EXCISIONS

Complex carbohydrate mannans have been shown to facilitate wound heali ng in animal models and in case reports. The present randomized contro lled study was designed to compare the effectiveness of an acemannan-c ontaining hydrogel [Carrasyn(R), Carrington(TM) hydrogel (CH), Carring ton Laboratories, Inc., Irving, TX] to conventional therapy (CT) used in our clinic, [hydrogen peroxide and antibiotic ointment (Bacitracin( R) E. Fougera & Co., A division of Altana Inc., Melville, NY) and an a dhesive dressing (Band Aid(R), Johnson & Johnson, Patterson, NJ)] in t he treatment of shave biopsy wounds. At the end of the first week, 13 of 26 patients treated with CH had epithelialized (50 percent). Nine o f 23 in the traditional treatment group had epithelialized (39 percent ). By the end of two weeks, all patients had fully epithelialized thei r wounds. Although more patients in the CH-treated group had epithelia lized completely at week 1 compared to the CT group, this difference w as not statistically significant