The Potential of Gelam Honey in Promoting the Proliferative Phase of Corneal Reepithelialization

Advances in molecular diagnostic medicine have allowed for more rapid, accurate, and comprehensive methods for identifying microorganisms in a chronic wound, which led to the de- velopment and use of a tailored topical antibiotic gel aimed at treating this bioburden. This is a retrospective chart review evalu- ating the authors' early experience with the use of bacteria-speci c antimicrobial gel therapy on chronic lower extremity wounds that have not responded to standard therapy. All patients in the study were treated with a topical gel along with standard of care modalities. A total of 48 patients with 76 wounds (50/76 venous leg ulcers; 65.8%) were identi ed and analyzed. Of the 48 patients, 11 (22.9%) had complete wound closure at a mean of 101.6 days of treatment. The number of wounds decreasing in size improved from 45.3% to 77.6% after gel therapy. An analysis of all wounds showed an increase in size by 0.7% weekly with the topical gel; how- ever, a mean weekly healing rate of 6.5% was seen when analyzing only the subset of wounds that decreased in size. Although a minor improvement of weekly healing rate was seen for a subset of the wounds, the overall wound closure rate was low.