Banana leaves as an alternative wound dressing.

Background: There is a need for cheap and efficacious wound dressings in developing countries. Banana leaves have been described as an excellent, inexpensive, easily available dressing material in tropical countries. As a natural product, banana leaves are heavily contaminated with various pathogens that must be removed before they can be used as wound dressings, but effective sterilization methods that do not affect the beneficial wound-dressing properties of banana leaves have not been described.