Topical acidification promotes healing of experimental deep partial thickness skin burns: a randomized double-blind preliminary study

The effects of three buffered solutions with pH values of 3.5, 7.42 and 8.5, respectively, on the healing rate of deep partial skin thickness burns, was followed for 21 days in 16 guinea-pigs. Two symmetrical burns were inflicted on the back of each animal and then each individual wound was dressed with an irrigation disc dressing; solutions were coded (no. 1 to no. 3) and the animals were randomly divided and blindly treated as follows: Group A, solution no. 1 v. solution no. 2 (n = 4); Group B, solution no. 2 v. solution no. 3(n = 4); Group C, solution no. 1 v. solution no. 3(n = 4); Group D, non-irrigated disc dressings (n = 4). The solutions were applied to the surface of the burn wounds at a rate of 0.15 ml/cm2. Dressings were changed every 7 days to assess contraction and epithelialization by a sonic digitizer. On post-burn day 21 the newly formed scar tissue was measured in all wounds. After computation of the healing rate at the end of the study, the data were then related to the coded treating agent. Contraction did not differ in all test groups during the study. Epithelialization was significantly faster in the pH 3.5-treated burns than in the other treated wounds (P less than 0.001). The present study indicates that topical acidification of experimental deep partial skin thickness burns promoted healing. The precise mechanism should be elucidated.