Background: The issues in the management of the donor site after harvesting a spilt thickness skin graft are taking care of discomfort and pain prevent sepsis, and promote primary healing with minimal scarring. The purpose of this study was to compare wound healing with a collagen dressing, against that produced by a Vaseline gauze dressing.

Material & Methods: The Study was carried over a period of two years in the Department of Plastic Surgery, at tertiary care hospital at New Delhi from September 2010 to August 2012. The study population consisted of subjects requiring a split skin graft for a burn, for a raw area after trauma or local sepsis. A total of 40 patients were selected for the study. Amongst this Vaseline Gauze was used to dress the donor site of STSG in 20 patients. In the other 20 patients, Collagen dressing was used. All grafts were taken from anterior and lateral aspect of thigh. Both groups were compared for following parameters pain, soakage and epithialization.

Result: The data was analyzed by matched pair analysis to calculate statistical significance of the observations. For each observation Chi­Square and p value was calculated. Following are the results for each observation:

Pain: ChiSquare was 33.02 and P value was 0.001, Soakage on 7th day: Chi­Square result was 29.03 and P value was 0.048, Epithlialization on 14th Day: Chi­Square result was 27.03 and P value.>0.676.

Conclusion: At the end of 24 hours 70% of collagen group were graded as low pain, while in the Vaseline group only 15% fell into group. This was a significant difference (p=0.001). The soakage under collagen dressing was significantly less (p=0.048). There was no statistical significant difference between the two dressing in terms of epithelization. (p =0.676).

Keywords: Collagen Dressing; Vaseline Group.