Effect of Tualang honey on the anastomotic wound healing in large bowel anastomosis in rats-A randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Honey has long been used for the treatment of number of ailments and diseases including surgical wounds. Current study evaluates the effectiveness of Tualang honey (TH) for large bowel anastomotic healing in Wistar rats. METHODS: Thirty male Wistar rats were given a 3 centimeter infra-umbilical laparotomy wound, in`flicted on their abdomen. The colonic transection was performed at 5 cm distal to caecum, with end to end anastomosis of colon segment. They were divided into two groups. Group I was fed with standard rat chow and water. Meanwhile, Group II apart from standard feed, was also given TH 1.0 g/kg every morning until day seven post operatively. Afterwards, anastomotic bursting pressures were measured and histopathological examination on the anastomosis line was performed with light microscopes. The data from two groups were analyzed by Independent paired t test for continuous variables. RESULTS: It was found that the tensile strength of colon anastomosis (95 % CI; p = <0.001) and the histopathological study including fibroblast count (p = <0.001) and inflammatory cells (p = 0.002) showed statistically significant difference in the favor of TH-treated group. Meanwhile, neovascularization formation was not statistically significant (p = 0.807); however, the overall count in the TH group was high. CONCLUSION: Oral treatment with TH enhances anastomotic wound healing by increasing the number of fibroblasts and by decreasing inflammatory cells leading towards increased wound strength.