An emerging field of plasma medicine is discussed, where non‐equilibrium plasmas are shown to be able to initiate, promote, control, and catalyze various complex behaviors and responses in biological systems. More importantly, it will be shown that plasma can be tuned to achieve the desired medical effect, especially in medical sterilization and treatment of different kind of skin diseases. Wound healing and tissue regeneration can be achieved following various types of plasma treatment in a multitude of wound pathologies. Non‐equilibrium plasmas will be shown to be non‐destructive to tissue, safe, and effective in inactivation of various parasites and foreign organisms.
Direct and indirect influence on microorganisms of non‐thermal atmospheric‐pressure DBD in air is compared in terms of bacterial inactivation rates. It is demonstrated that direct influence of the plasma, where charged particles contact bacteria directly, produces inactivation much faster than the indirect treatment, where plasma afterglow is delivered to the bacteria with a gas flow through the plasma region. This leads to an important conclusion that the effect of charged particles on plasma plays the essential role in interaction with living organisms, although synergy with longer living active molecules and atoms as well as UV radiation generated in plasma and at the surface of tissues may also play a role in inactivation.magnified image
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