Accelerated wound healing through a Poly-vinyl alcohol/chitosan/honey/clay nanocomposite hydrogel wound dressing

A proper combination of modern medical systems in conjunction with traditional ones causes optimum results in terms of medical treatments. In this work, a developed poly-vinyl alcohol/chitosan/clay nanocomposite hydrogel was loaded with honey as a traditional acknowledged drug, and then it was evaluated as a prospective biocompatible wound dressing. The wound-healing effect of the developed system was studied on mice wound models and compared with drug-free nanocomposite hydrogel and sterile gauzes. Results indicate that after 12 days post-operation, the calculated wound size reduction for honey nanocomposite hydrogel was 95.05%. It was significantly greater than other groups. Besides, the tensile strength of improved wounds was evaluated as a vital factor in the quality of healed wounds. The average tensile strength for control, drug-free, and honey-loaded samples was 52.26, 67.80, and 77.88% of normal skin, respectively. Generally, the increased tensile strength of wounds treated by nanocomposite hydrogels indicates the ability of such wound dressings to collagen formation through preparing a moist environment at the wound bed, besides accelerated wound healing of the developed system.