Banana leaf dressing for skin graft donor areas

Skin grafting is an integral part of burn wound management. The pain experienced at skin graft donor sites is significant. Banana leaf dressing (BLD) developed by our unit in 1996 is an excellent, non-adhesive, pain-free, cheap and easily available dressing material. We conducted a trial to compare efficacy of BLD with vaseline gauze (VG) dressing used by majority of burns centers for dressing skin graft donor areas. Thirty patients undergoing skin grafting were included in the study. BLD was applied on one half and VG on the other half of the donor area. Dressing change was done on the eighth day. Using the visual analogue scale we assessed the pain score, the dressing removal pain score and ease of dressing removal score. The advantage of early epithelisation of donor areas cannot be over stressed in burnt patients. The epithelisation status of the donor area on eight post-operative day was noted. The day of complete epithelisation was also noted. The average pain score with BLD was 1.1+0.71 while that with VG was 6.9+0.84. The average dressing removal pain score was 0.97 with BLD while that with VG it was 9.47. Ease of dressing removal score average was 1.1 with BLD while it was 9.53 with VG. In all the above scores the difference observed was statistically significant with P<0.001. The mean complete epithelisation day was 8.67 in the BLD covered areas as compared to 11.73 in the VG covered areas. This observation was highly significant with P<0.001. Our study clearly indicates that BLD is a completely non-adherent and painless dressing. We strongly recommend the use of BLD for all skin graft donor areas.