Abstract

Abstract Background Medical dressings are designed to promote wound healing and reduce infection. The aim of project is to investigate the effect of natural brown colored cotton dressings on the healing of infected wounds in E.coli animals. Materials and methods In this study, degreased white cotton gauze was used as the control group, with degreased brown cotton gauze and degreased bleached brown cotton gauze as the experimental group 1 and experimental group 2, to investigate the effect on the repair of post‐infectious wound damage in animals by establishing an infected wound model in rats with E.coli as the infecting organism. Results The ability to promote healing of infected wounds was investigated by analyzing the wound healing status, macroscopic wound healing rate, hematoxylin‐eosin staining, Masson staining, secretion of inflammatory factors by Elisa assay. The result showed that at day 14 of wound healing, the macroscopic wound healing rate was greater than 98% for all three groups of dressings; the collagen content reached 49.85 ± 5.84% in the experimental group 1 and 53.48 ± 5.32% in the experimental group 2, which was higher than the control group; brown cotton gauze promotes skin wound healing by shortening the inflammatory period in both groups. The expression of three inflammatory factors THF‐α, IL‐2, and IL‐8 and three cytokines MMP‐3, MMP‐8, and MMP‐9 were lower than that of the control group. Conclusions It was found that natural brown cotton gauze has better repairing and promoting healing effect on infected wounds. It opens up the application of natural brown cotton gauze in the treatment of infected wounds.