The "Silver Bullet" for Wounds?

It might sound like something out of a sci-fi novel, but silver, a natural antimicrobial, continues to gain popularity as a wound care dressing component.

Silver has been used for centuries for applications ranging from fighting off bacteria to keeping food from going bad. The Phoenicians commonly stored their water, wine and vinegar in silver bottles to keep it from spoiling, and in the early 1900s silver coins were often placed in milk bottles to prolong freshness. Silver’s use in preventing and treating infections actually dates back to World War I, before antibiotics came into use.

Silver is a broad-spectrum agent and is effective against gram-positive and gram-negative organisms as well as fungi and resistant strains of bacteria (such as MRSA and VRE). It has not been found to be toxic or harmful to wounds and can speed up the healing of infected, colonized and chronic wounds through both anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial mechanisms.¹

The FDA has approved a number of different silver-impregnated wound dressings, including hydrogels, hydrofibers, foams, hydrocolloid, gauze and alginates. These dressings can work in four different ways¹:

·       By releasing silver into the wound bed for antimicrobial action

·       By absorbing wound exudates into the dressing, where they are acted upon by the silver

·       By absorbing wound exudates and then releasing silver into the wound bed for antimicrobial activity

·       By releasing silver sulfadizine into the wound

When choosing a silver-impregnated dressing, physicians should consider what action the silver is taking on a particular wound.

Reference

1 Podiatry Today. Silver In Wound Care: What You Should Know. Available at: http://www.podiatrytoday.com/silver-wound-care-what-you-should-know. Accessed Feburary 23, 2012.