Analysis of therapeutic effect of silver‐based dressings on chronic wound healing

Chronic wounds are susceptible to bacterial infections and at high risk of developing antibiotic‐resistant bacterial infections. Silver is an antimicrobial by targeting almost all types of bacteria in chronic wounds to reduce the bacterial load in the infected area and further facilitate the healing process. This study focused on exploring whether silver‐based dressings were superior to non‐silver dressings in the treatment of chronic wounds. PubMed, Web of Science and Embase were comprehensively searched from inception to March 2024 for randomized clinical trials and observational studies. The endpoints in terms of wound healing rate, complete healing time, reduction on wound surface area and wound infection rate were analysed using Review Manager 5.4 software. A total of 15 studies involving 5046 patients were eventually included. The results showed that compared with patients provided with non‐silver dressings, patients provided with silver‐based dressings had higher wound healing rate (OR: 1.43, 95% CI: 1.10–1.85, p = 0.008), shorter complete healing time (MD: −0.96, 95% CI: −1.08 ~ −0.85, p