Gas Plasma-Augmented Wound Healing in Animal Models and Veterinary Medicine

Abstract

The loss of skin integrity is inevitable in life. Wound healing is a necessary sequence of events to reconstitute the body’s integrity against potentially harmful environmental agents and restore homeostasis. Attempts to improve cutaneous wound healing are therefore as old as humanity itself. Furthermore, nowadays, targeting defective wound healing is of utmost importance in an aging society with underlying diseases such as diabetes and vascular insufficiencies being on the rise. Because chronic wounds’ etiology and specific traits differ, there is widespread polypragmasia in targeting non-healing conditions. Reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (ROS/RNS) are an overarching theme accompanying wound healing and its biological stages. ROS are signaling agents generated by phagocytes to inactivate pathogens. Although ROS/RNS’s central role in the biology of wound healing has long been appreciated, it was only until the recent decade that these agents were explicitly used to target defective wound healing using gas plasma technology. Gas plasma is a physical state of matter and is a partially ionized gas operated at body temperature which generates a plethora of ROS/RNS simultaneously in a spatiotemporally controlled manner. Animal models of wound healing have been vital in driving the development of these wound healing-promoting technologies, and this review summarizes the current knowledge and identifies open ends derived from in vivo wound models under gas plasma therapy. While gas plasma-assisted wound healing in humans has become well established in Europe, veterinary medicine is an emerging field with great potential to improve the lives of suffering animals.

Non‐invasive physical plasma (NIPP) treatment of a hedgehog with head injury: A novel therapy in veterinary medicine

“…Mainly in injured dogs and cats, but also studies with other pets have shown that the combination of NIPP with drugs leads to a significant improvement of wound healing. [30][31][32][33][34][35][36] The same was confirmed in wounded sheep. 37 Molecular analysis demonstrated that increased ROS concentrations were present in the wound area.…”

“…However, there are some studies on the use of NIPP to treat wounds in different animal species. Mainly in injured dogs and cats, but also studies with other pets have shown that the combination of NIPP with drugs leads to a significant improvement of wound healing 30–36 . The same was confirmed in wounded sheep 37 .…”

Modulation of Inflammatory Responses by a Non-Invasive Physical Plasma Jet during Gingival Wound Healing

“…The present study was Intended as a follow-up study to the data already described in Eggers et al 2022, in which we observed a stimulating effect of NIPP on proliferation and remodelling [ 30 ]. The proliferation-promoting effect of NIPP has also been described by other authors in in vitro [ 66 ], in vivo [ 67 ] and clinical studies [ 68 ], but the underlying mechanisms are still largely unknown. Our study demonstrates that anti-inflammatory effects are induced by NIPP even in the absence of an inflammatory state, with a simultaneous proliferation-promoting effect of NIPP.…”

In-Vitro Biofilm Removal Efficacy Using Water Jet in Combination with Cold Plasma Technology on Dental Titanium Implants

“…Analyses were conducted using Stata/SE 14.2 (StataCorp., College Station, TX, USA). Graphs were produced using the ggplot2 software package [ 67 ] in R version 4.2.1 (R Core Team 2022, Vienna, Austria) [ 66 ] and prism 9.5.0 software (GraphPad, San Diego, CA, USA) for inflammation-related data analysis using paired t -test.…”