This prospective clinical comparison of the three commercially available
Biobrane preparations indicated that: (1) All three products of
Biobrane are excellent
skin substitutes. (2) Regular
Biobrane has satisfactory
wound adherence, however, its non-porous structure allows limited
wound drainage. Because of this, it has the highest incidence of haematoma and fluid accumulation (13.3 per cent) and delayed epithelialization (18.8 per cent) of the three products. (3) Thin Porous
Biobrane has poor adherence which limits patient activity and provides poor
pain relief. The
infection rate of 10 per cent was the highest of the three products. (4) Regular Porous
Biobrane demonstrated superiority to the other two
Biobrane products in this study. It provided good
wound adherence while maintaining
wound drainage because of its porous structure. The incidence of blood or fluid accumulation (7.1 per cent) was the lowest in the three products. (5) Most of the complications such as
infection, delayed epithelialization,
pain and activity impairment were related to fluid or blood accumulation. Adherence was found to be more important and reliable than pore structure. Operative haemostasis thus should be emphasized when using porous
Biobrane, as with all
skin substitutes.