Comparison of Efficacy and Participant Pain Level Following Use of Three Medical Adhesive Remover Sprays for Removal of Ostomy Wafers

Introduction: Removal of medical adhesive dressings, such as ostomy wafers, may result in skin stripping at the wound and peri-wound areas. Medical adhesive removers weaken the dressing’s adherence to the skin, thereby facilitating their removal with ease and reduced pain. Siloxane- or hexamethyldisiloxane-based medical adhesive removers are widely used to remove medical adhesive dressings.

Objective: This study compared the efficacy and participant pain level in healthy volunteers following the use of a hexamethyldisiloxane-based prototype medical adhesive remover spray compared to two commercially available adhesive removers.

Method: In this study involving 14 participants, subjective ease of removal of ostomy wafers and subjective assessment of pain perception upon removal of ostomy wafers, following application of medical adhesive removers, were conducted using numerical rating scales. Two different brands of ostomy wafers were used. Three wafers from one band were placed on the participant’s abdomen. Twenty-four hours after placement, the wafers were removed with the adhesive remover of the same brand (hexamethyldisiloxane- or siloxane-based), the prototype adhesive remover, or no adhesive remover. This procedure was repeated using the other brand of ostomy wafer and its adhesive remover.

Results: The prototype adhesive remover was found to cause less or similar levels of pain during removal of ostomy wafers as compared to the commercially available adhesive removers and less pain when no adhesive remover was used. The ease with which the prototype adhesive remover facilitated removal of ostomy wafers was either similar to or better than their respective brand of adhesive removers. No residual pain was reported 24 hours after removal of ostomy wafers.

Conclusions: Data collected from this study indicated that the prototype medical adhesive remover works either similarly or better than two leading brands of medical adhesive removers.