| Effects of platelet-rich plasma gel on skin healing in surgical wound in horses |
 |
 |
|
Page 1 of 5
IPhD, Associate Professor, Department of Veterinary Medicine, Surgery and Anesthesiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, UFMS, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil Introduction The skin healing is the aim of studies and researches due to its clinical, scientific and economic interest, especially due to the great frequency of wounds caused by injury in horses. The wound's healing is a physiological phenomenon that initiates from the loss of integrity of the skin generating a solution of continuity that reaches the underlying layers in diverse degrees and depends on a series of chemical reactions classically divided in four phases: inflammation, debridation, reparation and maturation1-2. In equine the healing of surgical or traumatic wounds delay and many times the cost limits the success of the healed wound. For this reasons, successful cutaneous wound healing needs combination drug therapy. A rich source of the complex group of growth factors (GF's) essential to natural wound repair is the platelet3. The platelets act in the haemostasis; wound healing and reepithelialization liberating diverse GF's that stimulate the angiogenesis, promoting growth and vascular fibroblast proliferation that in turn provide an increase in the collagen synthesis4-5. Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is 100% biocompatible and safe. It poses absolutely no infectious risk to the patient because it is made from the patient's own plasma. The PRP gel is obtained through the addition of calcium gluconate plus thrombin to the plasma. Degranulation of platelets by proteins such as thrombin causes them to release these factors which include transforming growth factor-ß (TGF-ß), fibrinogen, platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), epidermal growth factor (EGF), transforming growth factor-α (TGF-α), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), platelet thrombo-plastin, thrombospondin, coagulation factors, calcium, serotonin, histamine, and hydrolytic enzymes6. Several factors influence the healing process after traumatic or surgical injury, like advanced age, malnutrition and diseases such as diabetes. Wounds below the hock or knee in the horse are resistant to healing being a problem even in the healthiest animals7. However, this difficulty does not occurs in the upper body heal frequently. This may be due to the large distance between the trunk and lower limbs providing tissues of the lower limbs with a poor blood supply, thus lower oxygen, a lower temperature and an imbalance of growth factors7. Research with associated therapies in the healing treatment in the equine upper body may be helpful in improving the knowledge of the healing process in wounds below the hock or knee in this species. GF's are essential for regulating the cellular events involved in wound healing8. Several clinical studies demonstrate that GF treatment accelerates healing of normal tissues and promotes healing of impaired wounds9. TGF-ß is particularly important because once it is activated it affects most aspects of tissue repair, including initiation and termination in the treatment of chronic, nonhealing or slow to heal wounds over a decade ago8. Based in these reasons, we hypothesized that surgical wounds in horses treated with PRP gel would exhibit enhanced wound repair compared to control tissues. The objective of this study was to establish a protocol of the PRP gel from horse whole blood, growth factors, and autogenous thrombin, and also to do the first comments with the application of the PRP gel in surgical wound healing in sequentially sampled biopsies in horses.
|
