Effect of honey dressing material on palatal wound healing after harvesting a free gingival graft: a prospective randomized case control study.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this prospective randomized case-control study was to understand the clinical benefits and effect of honey as a dressing material on palatal wound healing after harvesting free gingival graft (FGG).

PATIENTS AND METHODS: This prospective randomized case-control study was conducted on a sample of 20 patients with 10 patients in each group. Medihoney dressing material was applied to the donor site in the test group, whereas no dressing material was applied to the control group. All the patients received the same medication (Ibuprofen 600 mg) and post-operative instructions straight away after the surgical procedure. Patients were given the follow-up appointment at first, second and fourth week after the surgery during which the length and the width of the donor site was measured and recorded.

RESULTS: At first week, a significant difference in the proportion of patients showing the healing of donor site percentage was found to be 56% (both in width and length) for test group vs. 44% (both in width and length) for the control group (p=0.001). At 4-week, the healing of donor site percentage was found to be 86% (in width) and 91% (in length) for test group vs. 14% (in width) and 9% (in length) for the control group, the difference being statistically significant (p=0.001).

CONCLUSIONS: The result of this current study suggests that the honey dressing material accelerated the wound healing process of the palatal wound after harvesting FGG. It also showed a shorter recovery period along with less post-operative morbidity.