In conclusion, in the present study it was shown that wound healing was prolonged in experimental animals deprived of melatonin through pinealectomy. Melatonin exerts positive effects on wound healing, whether it is administered topically or systemically.

These results indicate that repetitive treatment with HBO may cause oxidative stress in critical tissues including the lung. Although HBO-mediated free radicals are accepted to be responsible for the benefits of this therapeutic modality, especially in cases with prolonged exposure, possible injurious effects of supranormal values of bio-oxidative products need to be considered.

AbstractA 3-year-old boy with a Nicolau Syndrome (NS) on the left side of the body and the limbs after benzathine penicilline injection is reported. To the authors’ best knowledge, this is the first report of hyperbaric oxygen used in the late treatment of NS preventing the progress of the necrosis and therefore limiting the amputation level.

Hyperbaric oxygen (HBO2) exposure affects both oxidative and antioxidant systems. This effect is positively correlated with the exposure time and duration of the treatment. The present study aims enlightening the relation of HBO2with oxidative/antioxidant systems when administered in a prolonged and repetitive manner in brain tissues of rats. Sixty rats were divided into 6 study (n=8for each) and 1 control (n=12) group. Rats in the study groups were daily exposed 90-min HBO2sessions at 2.8 ATA for 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 and 40 days. One day after the last session, animals were sacrificed; their whole brain tissue was harvested and dissected into three different regions as the outer grey matter (cortex), the inner white matter and cerebellum. Levels of lipid peroxidation and protein oxidation and activities of superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase were measured in these tissues. Malondialdehyde, carbonylated protein and glutathione peroxidase levels were found to be insignificantly increased at different time-points in the cerebral cortex, inner white matter and cerebellum, respectively. These comparable results provide evidence for the safety of HBO treatments and/or successful adaptive mechanisms at least in the brain tissue of rats, even when administered for longer periods.

Objective: Reactive oxygen species are known to increase on a chronic wound background. We therefore investigated the possible efficacy of the topical administration of melatonin and vitamin E, known to have radical scavenging properties, in the ischemic wound model.Methods: Forty Sprague-Dawley type adult male rats were divided into 4 groups as normal wound, ischemic group, and with vitamin E or melatonin applied to the ischemic wound. Bipedicular flap surgery to the shaved back of the rats was used to induce ischemia. A full-thickness skin lesion was produced by punch biopsy in each animal 3 days after this procedure. The punch biopsy procedure was performed without the flap surgery in the normal wound group. The vitamin E and melatonin administration continue twice a day for a total of 7 days after the wound was formed.Results: Hydroxyproline (OH-proline) and malonyldialdehyde (MDA) levels and superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) enzyme activities were measured on the wound tissues removed by excisional biopsy at the end of the procedure. The MDA levels were significantly decreased in the groups receiving vitamin E and melatonin compared to the ischemic wound group. Vitamin E application also significantly increased OH-proline levels in the ischemic wounds. The antioxidant enzyme activities were not seen to be affected by the treatment procedures used.Conclusion: We concluded that the collagen synthesis decreased together with increased oxidative stress in the induced ischemic wound model; topical vitamin E application could reverse both states and melatonin could not support collagen synthesis although it had an antioxidant effect.