• Måns Muhrbeck, Andreas Wladis, Maria Lampi, Peter Andersson, and JunkerJohan P EJPEDepartment of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Center for Disaster Medicine and Traumatology, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden; Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Laboratory of Experimental Plastic Surgery, Linköping.
• Department of Surgery in Norrköping, and Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden; Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Center for Disaster Medicine and Traumatology, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden. Electronic address: mans.muhrbeck@regionostergotland.se.
• Injury. 2022 Feb 1; 53 (2): 381-392.

BackgroundIn armed conflicts, infected wounds constitute a large portion of the surgical workload. Treatment consists of debridements, change of dressings, and antibiotics. Many surgeons advocate for the use of honey as an adjunct with the rationale that honey has bactericidal and hyperosmotic properties. However, according to a Cochrane review from 2015 there is insufficient data to draw any conclusions regarding the efficacy of honey in treatment of wounds. We, therefore, decided to evaluate if honey is non-inferior to gentamicin in the treatment of infected wounds in a highly translatable porcine wound model.Material And Methods50 standardized wounds on two pigs were infected with S. aureus and separately treated with either topically applied Manuka honey or intramuscular gentamicin for eight days. Treatment efficacy was evaluated with quantitative cultures, wound area measurements, histological, immunohistochemical assays, and inflammatory response.ResultsTopically applied Manuka honey did not reduce bacterial count or wound area for the duration of treatment. Intramuscular gentamicin initially reduced bacterial count (geometric mean 5.59*¸0.37 - 4.27*¸0.80 log10 (GSD) CFU/g), but this was not sustained for the duration of the treatment. However, wound area was significantly reduced with intramuscular gentamicin at the end of treatment (mean 112.8 ± 30.0-67.7 ± 13.2 (SD) mm2). ANOVA-analysis demonstrated no variation in bacterial count for the two treatments but significant variation in wound area (p<0.0001). The inflammatory response was more persistent in the pig with wounds treated with topically applied Manuka honey than in the pig treated with intramuscular gentamicin.ConclusionAt the end of treatment S. aureus count was the same with topically applied Manuka honey and intramuscular gentamicin. The wound area was unchanged with topically applied Manuka honey and decreased with intramuscular gentamicin. Topically applied Manuka honey could consequently be non-inferior to intramuscular gentamicin in reducing S. aureus colonization on the wound's surface, but not in reducing wound size. The use of Manuka honey dressings to prevent further progression of a wound infection may therefore be of value in armed conflicts, where definite care is not immediately available.Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

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