Silver dressings induce cell death

Van Den Plas D, De Smet K, Lens D, Sollie P. Differential cell death programmes induced by silver dressings in vitro. Eur J Dermatol 2008 July;18(4):416-21.

That silver dressings show antimicrobial properties is widely accepted. However, recent data
has demonstrated that the much sought after antimicrobial properties are accompanied by
cellular cytotoxicity. That is to say that the silver dressings are not only killing the
microorganisms in the wound bed, but may well be killing those very cells that are essential
to wound healing. The dressings seem to kill indiscriminately.

Van den Plas et al (2008) investigated the cytotoxicity of various commercially
available dressings:

Comfeel^®-Ag
Seasorb^®-Ag
Biatain^®-Ag

The results show that within just 2 hours, for all dressings tested, cells undergo cell death.
The death stage induced was shown to be dependent on the cell type and the dressing.