ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION

Assessment of Chicken-Egg Membrane as a

Dressing for Wound Healing
Fernando Guarderas, MD; Yaowaree Leavell, MD; Trisha Sengupta, BBA;
Mariya Zhukova, BS; and Timothy L. Megraw, PhD

thalmic treatments,6 there are few research data available that

ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: To examine the efficacy of the folk remedy of
chicken-egg membrane dressing on wound healing.
DESIGN: Full-thickness excisional wounds were created on
14 male Sprague-Dawley rats in 2 separate trials. Each animal
received 2 wounds on the upper back. One wound was untreated,
and the other was dressed with chicken-egg membrane to assess
its impact on wound healing. Half of the rats received egg
membrane treatment on the inferior wound, whereas the other
half received egg membrane treatment on the superior wound.
Membrane replacement, wound debridement, and imaging were
done on days 5, 8, and 10 and then imaging continued on days 12,
14, 16, 18, and 20 of the experiment. Healing rate was measured
based on the wound area over the 20 days of the experiment.
RESULTS: The wounds dressed with chicken-egg membrane had
a significantly (P G .01) faster rate of healing compared with
the control at the early stages of healing between days 0 and 5.
This group healed 21% faster during this early phase, compared
with the control group. Overall, however, wound healing rates
were indistinguishable from days 5 to 20.
CONCLUSION: Chicken-egg membrane dressing significantly
improves healing of cutaneous wounds in the early stages of
wound healing.
KEYWORDS: wound healing, chicken-egg membrane dressing
ADV SKIN WOUND CARE 2016;29:131Y4
INTRODUCTION
The outer shell membranes of chicken eggs are widely used
in Ecuador as a home remedy for lacerations and abrasions.1
Additional anecdotal evidence of their use in wound healing
is reported in France,2 Ukraine,3 and California.4 In Taiwan, a
clinical study assessed their effectiveness to treat burns.5 Although
egg membranes were once used in western medicine in oph-
have evaluated its effectiveness and safety.
The egg membrane is a highly collagenized tissue found to be
90% protein by weight. The main collagen types are I, IV, and V.
Other major components include albumin, uronic acid, and sialic
acid.7 When applied as a home or field dressing, some of the egg
white is retained,1 which provides adhesive properties, whereas
the membrane retains gas permeability. The egg white contains
lysozyme, avidin (a biotin binder), ovotransferrin (an iron binder),
collagenases, and chondroitin sulfate.8 The membrane hardens
and contracts as it dries, which assists in wound closure. Zadik3
described a patient in 2007 with a severe lip laceration that had
completely healed using only egg membrane. He noted that
tissue adhesives have not typically been recommended for
highly mobile areas such as the lip.3 Messens et al9 reviewed
several food studies to determine the barriers of eggs to bacterial
invasion and concluded that the egg membrane acted as a tem-
porary barrier.
The authors used a rat model of wound healing to evaluate
the risks and efficacy of this folk wound treatment protocol.
METHODS
Male Sprague-Dawley rats weighing between 276 and 300 g
were purchased from Charles River Laboratories, Wilmington,
Massachusetts. Two separate trials were completed with 6 and
8 rats, respectively. While under inhalation anesthesia with
isoflurane (Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Park, Illinois), the rats
were shaved, and 3 treatments of antiseptic iodine/alcohol were
applied to their backs. Next, 2 full-thickness circular excision
wounds with a radius of 6 mm were made using a skin punch
(Acuderm, Fort Lauderdale, Florida) on each rat. The first wound
was introduced midline, between the scapulas, and the second
was 1.5 cm posterior to the first. Both wounds were then treated
with topical gentamicin ointment.

Fernando Guarderas, MD, is an Emergency Medicine Resident, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Yaowaree Leavell, MD, is an Internal Medicine Resident, Orlando
Regional Medical Center, Internal Medicine Department, Orlando, Florida. Trisha Sengupta, BBA, is a Medical Student, Florida State University College of Medicine, Tallahassee, Florida.
Mariya Zhukova, BS, is a Medical Student, Florida State University College of Medicine, Tallahassee, Florida. Timothy L. Megraw, PhD, is Associate Professor, Florida State University
College of Medicine, Biomedical Sciences, Tallahassee, Florida. The authors disclose they have no financial relationships related to this article. Acknowledgments: The authors have disclosed
that Florida State University College of Medicine provided funding for this study and extend their thanks to the university. The authors also thank Beth Alexander, Dr Kathy Harper, Dr Myra
Hurt, Kim Johnson, Henry Carretta, Dr Michael Blaber, Britney Griffin, Juan Guarderas, and Juan M Espinosa for their generous help with the project. Submitted May 18, 2014; accepted in
revised form August 19, 2014.

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 ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION
Figure 1.
PREPARATION OF CHICKEN-EGG MEMBRANE
The membrane from the shell of a chicken egg is removed by peeling it from a cracked eggshell.
Arrows point to membrane perched on the tip of a finger and to membrane still attached to the
eggshell. In the experiments where membrane was prepared to dress wounds on rats, sterile
gloves were worn.
One wound received the egg membrane dressing (Figure 1),
and the other received no treatment. Half of the rats received
egg membrane treatment on the inferior wound, and the other
half received egg membrane treatment on the superior wound.
This was done to control for differences in wound placement.
Egg membranes were isolated from pathogen-free eggs
(Charles River Laboratories). For extraction of membranes,
eggs were placed in 70% ethanol for 5 minutes, then dried and
cracked, and the internal contents disposed. Then the egg mem-
brane was peeled from the shell manually with sterile gloves.
The egg membranes were dipped in penicillin/streptomycin
solution to prevent infection. Egg white was placed in the middle
of the wound and tissue adhesive (Butler Schein Animal Health,
Dublin, Ohio) on the borders of the membrane. Before waking
from anesthesia, the rats were fitted with restraint jackets (Lomir
Biomedical, Inc, Malone, New York) to hamper wound tampering
and were kept in these jackets for the duration of the experiment.
Five days after wound generation, the dressings were removed,
and both wounds were debrided. A 10-megapixel camera (Nikon,
Melville, New York) was used to photograph the wounds from a
distance of 6 inches above the rats. New egg membranes were
reapplied to the treated wounds. Membrane replacement, wound
debridement, and imaging were performed on days 5, 8, and 10
and then ceased except for the imaging, which continued on days
12, 14, 16, 18, and 20 of the experiment. A new egg membrane was
ADVANCES IN SKIN & WOUND CARE & VOL. 29 NO. 3 132
Copyright © 2016 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.
also applied if the membrane were to detach in between intervals
on days 1 to 10. The percentage of healing was calculated using
the following formula: area (open wound) / area (initial). The
areas were measured using Image J software to determine a pixel
count of the open wound. This was done to acquire data points for
days 0, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, and 20 for a total of 9 data points per
wound. The treatment versus nontreatment wounds were
compared using a paired-sample t test (SPSS version 20; IBM,
Armonk, New York) at each data point.
All animal experiments were approved by the Florida State
University Animal Care and Use Committee.
RESULTS
In order to compare the relative healing properties of chicken-
egg membranes on wounds, the authors measured the healing
rates of 2 coincident circular skin punch wounds generated on
the back of rats: 1 control wound, with no dressing, and 1 wound
dressed with egg membrane (Figures 2AYC).
The authors tracked the progress of wound healing by digital
imaging of the wounds on days 0, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, and 20
and measured the relative change in wound diameter. The
results indicated that there was a statistically significantly faster
rate of healing of the wounds when they were covered with the
egg membrane treatment compared with the control wounds at
the early stages of healing between days 0 and 5 (Figures 2DYE).
The treatment group healed 21% faster during these early days
of healing compared with the control group. Overall, however,
the wounds healed at indistinguishable rates from days 8 to 21
(Figures 2DYE). These results indicate that a wound dressed with
chicken-egg membrane heals more rapidly in the early stages of
wound healing. The control wounds healed with rates that are
similar to other wound-healing studies.10
DISCUSSION
In this article, the authors show that a traditional folk remedy
of dressing a wound with chicken-egg membrane treatment
(the outer shell membrane) appears to accelerate the early
stages of wound healing. The authors_ data support the idea
that this folk remedy provides a benefit to wound treatment,
and as a field wound dressing remedy, the application of a
chicken-egg membrane to a wound might provide benefit over
an uncovered wound.
The relative rate of healing during the first 5 days was in-
creased by the addition of the egg membrane. However, the egg
membraneYcovered wounds slowed during days 5 to 8 relative to
the control. The 0 to 5 days represents the lag phase of healing
during which disorganized fibroblast migration occurs in order to
lay down fibronectin and hyaluronan to act as a scaffold while
depositing relatively little collagen.11,12 It is possible that the egg
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 ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION

Figure 2.
PROGRESS OF WOUND HEALING BY EGG MEMBRANE TREATMENT

In the examples shown, the anterior wound (left) was untreated, and the posterior wound (right) was dressed with egg membrane. Shown are wounds imaged on (A) day 0, (B) day 5, and (C) day 12.
The white disk in each image is 7 mm in diameter. D, Quantitation of egg membrane effect on wound healing. Shown are the averages of the percentage of healing for the control and egg
membrane-treated wounds for each day for both trials. Error is SEM. E, Table of the significance values for the data for each day of the experiment showing the mean and P values for
each day of the experiment using the Student t test.

membrane provides a scaffold for the fibroblast migration, thus
accelerating this lag phase. Other possible mechanisms include
wound contracture, an added supply of collagen and nutrients
for healing from the membrane, and/or albumin of egg white
assisting in healing. However, because antibiotic application
was added only to the egg membraneYdressed wounds, it is
possible that this also affected the rate of wound healing.
The use of an egg membrane appears to be a safe form of
dressing.1,3,5,6 Caution should be exercised, however, by those
with allergies to eggs. Moreover, as Salmonella often resides
outside chicken eggs, there also is a risk of infection.
Further investigation of egg membrane efficacy in wound
healing should include histology to probe the mechanism of
increased rate of early healing along with more frequent time
points to closely monitor healing during the early stages of wound
healing (days 0Y5). In addition, the application of antibiotics
should be included in the control wounds.
As a possible application for this remedy, the egg membranes
could be incorporated into bandages and used with skin grafts.
Moreover, this treatment might be recommended for emergency
field medicine.
POSSIBLE CONFOUNDING VARIABLES
The authors_ animal use protocol required placing the egg mem-
brane in a solution of penicillin plus streptomycin, whereas the
control wound was not exposed to these antibiotics. Because
antibiotics may improve healing by decreasing inflammation,13
this variable may have affected the healing of the dressed

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 ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION
wounds relative to the controls. In addition, the authors had to
remove the dressing and debride both wounds at set intervals
in order to measure the extent of wound healing, which may
interfere with the progress of healing,14 but this likely affected
both wounds equally.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the use of a chicken-egg membrane dressing may
significantly improve the healing of cutaneous wounds in the
early stages of wound healing.
& Poultry Sci J 2005;61(1):71-86.
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3. Zadik Y. Self-treatment of full-thickness traumatic lip laceration with chicken egg shell
membrane. Wilderness Environ Med 2007;18:230-1.
CALL FOR PAPERS
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Consult the journal’s Web site, www.woundcarejournal.com,
for the Author Guidelines.
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