Manuka honey: A promising wound dressing material for the chronic nonhealing discharging wounds: A retrospective study

OBJECTIVES: To assess the efficacy and feasibility of topical manuka honey application in chronic nonhealing discharging extraoral wounds. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study includes 15 patients (9 males and 6 females, mean age: 38.06, range: 20–50 years), presenting with the complaint of chronic nonhealing discharging extraoral wounds from January 2018 to January 2020. After wound irrigation with normal saline, manuka honey in conjunction with the antibiotic treatment was directly applied onto the surface of the wound and was then covered by an absorbent layer to contain the honey. Dressings were changed every alternate day for a week till there was complete cessation of pus discharge. Henceforth, the interval between dressings was increased to 1 week subsequently and was continued for 4 weeks. Assessment was done on the basis of discharge and depth of the wound before the procedure and weekly for 4 weeks. RESULTS: The average depth of wound as seen at 15 sites after a week was 5.72 mm, and decrease in the average depth of wound seen at the end of the 4(th) week was 0.88 mm with complete wound epithelization. This was found to be statistically significant (P = 0.0001). No cases were reported with allergy, pain, infection, inflammation, and swelling on 1(st), 2(nd), 3(rd), and 4(th)week. CONCLUSION: Hence, the use of manuka honey as a wound dressing material in our study has proved to promote the growth of tissues for wound repair, suppress inflammation, and bring about rapid autolytic debridement.