Growth Factor Therapy to Improve Soft Tissue Healing

Abstract

The advent of new U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved products containing growth factors to improve soft tissue healing signifies a new era for wound healing. Over the last decade, some clinical growth factor studies have been promising, whereas others have not shown any positive effect. What many of these studies have shown is that the state of a healing wound is not only dependent on its growth factor milieu but also on other variables (wound care, tissue oxygen state, bacteria count, and nutritional status of the patient). This article describes recent progress with growth factors on soft tissue structures (skin, mucosa, and nerve) relevant to the facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon.

Regeneration of aged vocal fold: First human case treated with fibroblast growth factor

“…Growth factor therapy is considered as a ''trigger'' to jump start biological mechanisms, 21 which may be the reason why only a single injection of bFGF solution made such drastic effects as seen in the present study. Further studies are necessary to clarify how long the effects last and how consistently it works for different patients.…”

Adipose Stromal Cells and Platelet-Rich Plasma Therapies Synergistically Increase Revascularization during Wound Healing

“…One of the promising yet clinically challenging areas of recent therapeutic development involves topical application of growth factors to enhance the normal healing process. 1 Many of these new therapies have involved the provision of individual trophic factors with defined biological activities. They have a restricting growth factor release that is dependent on matrix loading, thus potentially limiting their overall ability to affect healing.…”

Current status of genetic modulation of growth factors in wound repair (Review)

“…The administration of several recombinant growth factors has shown clinical improvement in wound-healing rates in preclinical animal models (62)(63)(64)(65). In incisional wound healing, PDGF induces fibroblast proliferation and differentiation, collagen deposition and angiogenesis (66,67).…”