Aloe vera is a readily available, affordable adjuvant for wound treatment with a low-risk profile. Although it has been used for many years to treat different kinds of wounds, published studies on its effectiveness were still conflicting. For a study, researchers sought to provide the findings of a systematic review that evaluated the effectiveness of topical aloe vera products in applications for wound care, as well as a meta-analysis of its use in burn healing, a field where data were most reliable.
They looked for randomized controlled trials evaluating the effectiveness of aloe vera in treating various wound types using PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane CENTRAL in accordance with PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) standards. The search of the database turned up 91 items. About 74 papers were examined after duplicates were eliminated, and of those, 47 were evaluated for eligibility. In the end, 4 papers evaluating second-degree burns were included in the meta-analysis along with 28 publications that were included in the qualitative synthesis. The number of participants/wounds, kind of therapy, supplementary therapy (if any), and primary outcomes were all taken from each research.
Results of a risk-of-bias analysis on the included papers were collected. Studies concentrating on the treatment of burns underwent a meta-analysis. In all, 133 individuals with 163 wounds were evaluated throughout these investigations. Analysis showed a mean difference in time to healing of 4.44 days which was statistically significant in favor of aloe vera therapy (P =.004).
When compared to other treatments, topical aloe vera usage for second-degree burn wound healing showed a noticeably quicker time to healing.
