Dressing spray enhances the adhesive strength of surgical dressing tapes.

BACKGROUND: The use of surgical adhesive tapes after minor surgical and dermatologic operations is widespread. Their use reduces the wound tension and separation and they ultimately improve the postoperative scar. The most commonly used wound adhesives to enhance the adhesiveness of the surgical tapes, are tincture of benzoin and mastisol.

AIM: The purpose of the present study is to demonstrate the role of adhesive power of dressing spray with the adhesive tape application on the skin, which is widely used in clinics after the skin closure.

METHODS: Fifteen volunteers who were chosen among the medical personnel of the hospital comprised the study group. The skin of the flexor aspect of the 1/3 middle forearm of the subjects was used as the procedure region. The data is collected in the first, second and eighth days of the study. At the first stage of the study, an adhesive wound closure tape was applied to the skin without any compound of adhesives (group A). In the second and third stages, a thin coat of transparent film dressing spray (group B) and an adhesive compound of tincture of benzoin (group C) were applied to the skin before the adhesive tape placement, respectively. Different values of weights ranging between 50-900 gm were hanged by hooking into the center of the adhesive tape. The weights that caused complete separations of the tape from the skin after exactly 20 seconds were recorded in all groups. The data was analyzed by using Friedman test in order to calculate statistical significance between groups A, B and C.

RESULTS: The difference in adhesive power between control and groups B and C was found to be highly significant ( p

CONCLUSION: The results indicated that dressing spray tested has an additional adhesive power besides its well known features and that it can be used as an efficient alternative material among other adhesive compounds.