Surg Cosmet Dermatol. 2019;11(1):31-34
INTRODUCTION: Healing is a phenomenon that occurs after tissue injury and involves complex cellular and molecular mechanisms. Growth factors seem to be an effective and safe complement for the treatment of wounds.
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate wound healing after electrocoagulation, comparing the vehicle in isolation and its association with epidermal growth factor.
METHODS: Double-blind clinical trial in a Dermatology service between 2016 and 2018. Patients of both genders, older than 18 years of age, submitted to electrocoagulation of two lesions and subsequent application of the vehicle (cold cream) on one and epidermal growth factor in cold cream on the other were included. Evaluations after 7, 14 and 28 days, analysed erythema, edema, crusting, discharge and healing. Analyzed: edema, edema, crusting, discharge and healing. The binomial test was used for two ratios and Fisher’s exact test was used for dichotomic data.
RESULTS: Variable results were found regarding erythema, edema, crusting and discharge, sometimes favoring the vehicle, sometimes the growth factor, however with no statistical significance. Regarding healing, epithelialization was quicker with with epidermal growth factor (p<0.05).
CONCLUSIONS: This study evaluated the impact of epidermal growth factor in the healing process, and its results reinforce scarce data of the current literature and are a foundation for future studies.
Keywords: Epidermal growth factor; Evaluation; Wound healing