The effect of aloe vera on wound healing after surgery: A systematic review

Background: Aloe vera has been traditionally used for wound healing after surgery but clin ical evidence remains unclear. Many studies have been done on Aloe Vera and its topical application has been found to be effective in healing skin wounds. Accordingly, we plan to systematically review the impact of aloe vera on post-surgical wound healing Material and Methods: We was done a comprehensive search in SID, Irandoc, Google Scholar, PubMed, Medline, Scopus, Science Direct database, using keywords of aloe vera, wound healing. All clinical trial articles that used aloe vera gel, cream, and other aloe vera-derived products for healing of wound after surgery included in this review. The electronic search was performed without any time limit. This review article used the 2009 PRISMA checklist and articles on animal specimens, duplicate articles, non-transparent statistical results, and .incomplete articles and all articles with a sample size of less than 30 were excluded Results: 16 clinical trials that met the inclusion criteria were evaluated. These studies have investigated the use of aloe vera in post-operative wounds such as episiotomy, cesarean section, skin biopsy, emorrhoidectomy, gynecologic surgical laparotomy, and graft site. In all of these studies, the use of aloe vera gel and cream compared to other convention al treatments has reduced pain and discharge and reduced recovery time. Only one study showed that using Aloe Vera dressing group for skin biopsy did not differ from those of the .composite dressing groupConclusion: According to the results of this study, the aloe vera products are an effective and low cost treatment in traditional med.icine and using of them is recommended

Keywords:

aloe vera , wound healing , surgery