Tehran University Medical Journal

Background: Rapid repair of skin donor sites in partial-thickness skin grafts in burn is critical to the patient. Severe pain during dressing change and scarring also reduce the quality of life and treatment. Recently, nano-silver particles are available which have a high surface to volume ratio and remain effective even at a very low concentration and minimize the chance for tissue toxicity due to silver. Our aim in this study was to evaluate the effect of nano-silver dressings on increasing the rate of repair and reduction of complications in non-infectious wounds of skin graft donor sites.
Methods: This was comparison study that involved patients admitted to a single-center burn unit who required a skin graft donor site. 10 burn patients with thermal injury and 10-30% of total body surface area (TBSA) who referred to Shahid Motahari Hospital, Tehran, in 2016 were studied. Each patient was compared to herself. After anesthesia, the site of the skin graft was randomly divided into three sections in each patient and was covered with Agicoat®, Mepitel and vaseline gauze. On the 4th and 8th of the day, the pain was recorded during the dressing change on the basis of the visual analogue scale (VAS). After 6 months, the patients were evaluated for the remainder of the scars based on VSS (Vancouver scar scale).
Results: The mean time to repair in both groups were similar and significantly shorter than that of vaseline (P=0.005). The pain comparison between groups showed that on the fourth day, the mean pain in the Agicoat group and Mepitel was significantly less than the Vaseline group (P=0.004). Also, the mean pain of the epileptic group was significantly lower than that of the Vaseline group (0.002). However, there was no significant difference between the duration of regeneration and pain between the two groups of Agicoat and Mepitel, but there was no significant difference between the mean pain on the 8th day and the mean VAS 6 months after the graft.
Conclusion: Agicoat dressing has been effective in reducing pain and increasing the repair speed, but this effect was similar to that of the silver-free Mepitel dressing. Expensive silver nano-crystal dressings limit their use. The silver nanocrystal did not have much effect on improving the remaining scar. However, more studies are needed in this regard.
 

Background: Considering the high death rate of patients on the transplant waiting list, one of the most important ethical challenges of organ transplantation is the lack of transplant organs and different approaches to cover it.
Methods: The ethical issues of organ transplantation have been frequently reviewed recently.
Results: Currently, there are 4 sources for organ transplants, which are: a) organ transplant from animal to human b) transplant from a living donor c) transplant from a brain-dead donor d) transplant from a cardiac-dead donor or donors without a heartbeat, and tissue engineering research continues to prepare a transplantable organ. Each of them has its own limitation and specific consideration. In Iran, organ procurement from brain-dead donors and living donors are the most important sources. Many approaches have been considered to increase the number of procured organs from brain-death cases in the world, but have not yet been able to reduce the gap between supply and demand. Therefore, since the 1980s, the program of organ transplantation from cardiac death (donors with irreversible cardiac arrest) in the world has been reviewed again. Based on the classification of cardiac arrest patients, they are placed in two general categories: uncontrolled and controlled. In a controlled condition, death is predictable, and organ removal is possible by eliminating planned medical interventions and patient support. But in the uncontrolled state, death occurs accidentally, which is more likely to prolong the duration of hot ischemia. Italy's organ donation group has recently introduced type 6 deaths in patients on ECMO, which is mentioned as a semi-controlled group. This group is called donors with abnormal blood flow versus brain-dead donors with normal blood flow. In this study, ethical considerations for organ donation from NHBD were discussed. Regarding the procurement of organs from non-heart beating donors, there are many ethical considerations that include both the donors and the recipients. Considering that the clinical conditions of the brain-dead donors are sometimes very unstable, cardiac arrest may occur before organ harvesting. In these cases, donation after cardiac death is an option.
Conclusion: It is necessary to regulate the ethical considerations for organ procurement from NHBD