Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Wounds on horses are common and sometimes difficult to treat. The wounds are often big and could be discovered too late for primary sutures, which have to be applied within 8 hours from time of accident, before bacteria has been able to infiltrate the surrounding tissue. The healing is often complicated by delayed healing and wound infection with consequences like phlegmone, fistulation and proud flesh formation.
To avoid these consequences, the traditional practice has been to administer systemic antibiotics alone, systemic antibiotics in combination with topical antibiotics or topical antibiotics alone. Because few antibiotics can be used in horses, is it important to household with the few substances that are available. In veterinary medicine today, the increasing resistance amongst pathogenic microbes such as MRSA presents a growing problem. It is therefore more important than ever to find new strategies for treatment to try to prevent infections.
The objective of this exam work was to focus on Vaseline used as placebo in another study that was to exploring both the antibacterial effect and the influence on wound healing by topical treatment with 1 % hydrogen peroxide cream in fresh skin wounds on horses. Vaseline is a common substance used as placebo in clinical trials, but few have studied its effect on secondary wound healing in horses
The horses in this study consisted of 10 nonpregnant, female standardbred trotting horses kept under identical housing conditions at the Department of clinical sciences, section of reproduction, SLU, Uppsala.
In the clinical trial, three identical wounds were created on each horse. One of the wounds was treated with 1 % hydrogen peroxide cream, one was treated with Vaseline as placebo, and the third wound was left untreated.
The healing process was then assessed by clinical, bacteriological, and cytological examinations and were continually digitally photographed followed by objective measuring via the computer program PictZar® under the whole healing process until the wounds were entirely covered with epithelium.
The results of this study have shown that Vaseline has no inhibitory effects on bacterial growth. It has also shown that Vaseline doesn´t delay time of healing compared with untreated controls and doesn´t have any other side effects than a slight local hypergranulation.
Vaseline can therefore be considered to be a safe choice of placebo in studies of secondary wound healing in horses.