BACKGROUND: Honey has the antibacterial effect of silver without the toxic effect of silver on the skin. Even so, silver is the dominant antibacterial dressing used in wound healing. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the healing effects of honey dressings compared to silver dressings for acute or chronic wounds. DESIGN: A systematic review with meta-analysis. METHOD: The search, conducted in seven databases, resulted in six randomised controlled trial studies from South Asia focusing on antibacterial properties and healing times of honey and silver. RESULT: Honey was more efficacious for wound healing than silver, as measured in the number of days needed for wounds to heal (pooled risk difference -20, 95% CI -0.29 to -0.11, p < .001). Honey turned out to have more antibacterial qualities than silver. CONCLUSION: All the included studies based on burns showed the unequivocal result that honey had an even more positive effect than silver on wound healing.
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Lindberg et al. (2015) studied this question.
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